Evan Williams on The Means Residence: “Put together for All of Your Expectations to be Flipped Upside Down”

We’re solely two episodes into Hallmark’s new household drama with a fantasy factor, The Means Residence, however we’re already looking forward to extra.

We had the possibility to meet up with Evan Williams, who performs the grownup model of Elliot Augustine, a long-time household buddy of the Landry household.

Elliot is part of the household’s cloth and acts as Alice’s tether as she navigates the previous and current of his and her household’s lives.

What are you most having fun with about taking part in Elliot Augustine?

That is a very good one. I believe Elliot is a very multifaceted character, which at all times fires my creativeness.

What’s actually cool about this character is I get to play one dynamic with Alice, which is kind of the mentor, just like the older technology in confiding knowledge and course, and on the similar time, a distinct dynamic with Kat, who’s Alice’s mom, which is, hopefully, extra of a romantic, a peer attempting to work his method out of the buddy zone.

So it is good to play that rigidity between having a lot authority with one individual after which actually struggling to attempt to discover a degree floor with the opposite individual. It is particularly attention-grabbing when these two dynamics flip, and he is having bother establishing authority the least bit.

One thing I discover actually attention-grabbing about his dynamic with each of them is that he has managed to maintain that secret about Alice for all of these years. How do you suppose he managed to try this?

Effectively, I believe Elliot is a man who cares. He cares deeply in regards to the Landrys, and likewise I take into consideration actuality. And as quickly as you are coping with something time journey associated, you begin to acknowledge how precarious the space-time continuum is.

And Elliot is a brilliant man, and I do not suppose he desires to tear a gap in actuality and have your complete experiment go up in flames. So I believe he noticed it as crucial to maintain the key so he may hold the variables below management.

Now, I am attempting to think about younger Elliot, who, in fact, you aren’t taking part in, however you’re the elder Elliot. And when Jacob disappeared, do you suppose it dawned on him that perhaps he went by means of the pond?

I imply, that looks as if a seminal second to me the place I can not think about how anyone couldn’t need to attempt to rip that gap if it meant getting a baby again.

Yeah. I believe Elliot is a scientist, and so I am positive he is examined each doable permutation of what might need occurred. However he is additionally not the type of man who’s going to run with theories.

He wants to have the ability to show issues. And the truth that the pond is, as we have established, an unreliable mechanism, that means that typically it really works, typically it does not, I believe that there is nothing Elliot may do with any of that data as a result of he needed to hold it secret.

So no matter his theories are, I am positive he is acquired years and years of writing about it. You may even inform by the way in which he acts when he lastly meets Alice. It is all occurring. It is all like he is now on the opposite facet.

And so perhaps a number of the mysteries he is been harboring internally and alone for all these years, he lastly goes to have an opportunity to get some solutions to. So I believe that is actually thrilling for Elliot.

Have you ever given him some backstory into what it should have been like for these two occasions in his life to abruptly be in existence?

Yeah, positively. It is basic to with the ability to play a personality like that, to have the ability to fill within the strains. And for me, crucial was what have been the years in between.

Proper.

And in a method, he is kind of been given a prophecy, and I am positive within the interceding years, he had a number of alternatives to both attempt to check that prophecy or attempt to reverse it or any variety of issues.

And so I needed to make some choices about what the state of Elliot we see initially of our present is and the way it in comparison with the younger Elliot so superbly and pointedly performed by younger David Webster, a very proficient Canadian actor who I beloved attending to work alongside.

We by no means actually acquired to be in the identical scene collectively, clearly, as a result of that will break the whole lot, however we did get some alternative to place our heads collectively and develop some backstory and mannerisms and issues that we may use to unite our two performances.

I used to be going to ask that as a result of I observed an actual similarity between the time that younger Elliot realizes that he is not Alice’s father and the time that you’re reacting to Kat when she places her head in your shoulder. There was an actual longing on each of your faces at the moment.

Effectively, that is actually gratifying to listen to that it made it by means of the airwaves and into your eye holes, so thanks for watching.

[laughs] Sure, sure, it did. What’s he feeling now that Kat’s again in his life as he is coping with all of these items from the previous that’s coming collectively? I imply, you may see the hope on his face that he nonetheless harbors feeling for her. So yeah, he does need to get out of the buddy zone, as you talked about.

Yeah. Effectively, I believe Kat and Alice signify to Elliot a chance to lastly be freed from the prophecy of residing inside an outlined actuality, which he is been doing eternally since he was 16 years outdated. So I believe it is thrilling and scary.

And I additionally suppose there’s one thing to any individual who resides or figures out stay comfortably inside one modality, for instance, as quickly because it’s challenged, or there’s the likelihood that the whole lot may change, hastily the query turns into, effectively, do I would like it to vary? And am I prepared for it to vary?

And so I believe Elliot’s simply working actually onerous to concentrate and, as at all times, see if he will be of service. As a result of yeah, he loves not solely Kat however this complete household. They’re so central to his total life in ways in which they do not even know, or most of them do not even know at this level.

So yeah, it is like hastily, there is a cost, and it feels just like the wattage is amping up for Elliot, and he is studying cope with the brand new present.

So I am curious, if somebody confirmed you a magical pond after which you may go someplace, would you soar in?

Completely. With out hesitation. Effectively, I imply, the query is when, proper? When would I need to land?

Proper. Are you aware whenever you would need to land?

Effectively, I imply, it is a powerful one. It is powerful to determine when since you do not need to get in bother for the issues you realize. So yeah, perhaps one thing like 20 years.

Twenty years could be good as a result of it isn’t to this point again that you’ll be accused of being a heretic, and you are not going to grow to be a snack for a Tyrannosaurus Rex or one thing like that.

So it will be actually fascinating to have the ability to witness your self making essential decisions. And I additionally suppose it will be actually tough to not need to become involved.

Proper. And since we all know that the pond has a thoughts of its personal, I do know the place you’d need to go about 20 years. The place do you suppose it will take you?

Wherever I used to be wanted, in all probability.

That is a very good one. Yeah. I might think about it will take me someplace actually awkward that I did not actually need to go. Like my punishment for leaping in. [laughs]

Yeah. Or if there was one thing, like perhaps in a dream, if there was some expertise that I took to coronary heart and had the chance to witness from the facet and acknowledge the lesson that I had discovered or the way it modified me.

I got here away with it considering one factor, however [through the pond] I used to be capable of finding some reflexivity and see it from a distinct angle and perhaps forgive myself or have some extra empathy.

As a result of it is onerous to develop up. It is onerous to be alive. So I believe it is a want achievement factor to have the ability to return and study extra, understanding what we now know.

Which leads me to this query, in case you may give Elliot recommendation, each younger and outdated, what wouldn’t it be?

Oh, cling in there. And in addition, you matter. Your coronary heart issues, and the way you’re feeling issues. I believe Elliot’s a helper, and typically helpers overlook to assist themselves.

And my final query for you is, how would you tease the remainder of the season?

It simply will get a lot extra thrilling and complicated and rewarding from right here on out. Now that we have arrange the present, we all know who the characters are and what they need. Put together for your entire expectations to be flipped the other way up.

And I believe people are going to fall in love with these characters much more and hopefully see a bit of little bit of themselves.

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The Means Residence airs Sundays at 9/8c on Hallmark Channel.

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