Paul Rea: On Wolf Pack, you had a very specific look and feel that you wanted going in.
And it really leaped off the page to me.
We had that discussion that it reminded me of Euphoria in the sense that I was seeing
over-saturated colors and and all this mood lighting and some really great character work.
Did you get what you intended? I know nothing ever comes out exactly as you write it.
But when you were finished with it, when you looked at that first episode, when you looked
at that pilot - did you go, "Yeah, this is what I was going for."?
Jeff Davis: Yes. Actually there was a moment where I texted Tyler Lawrence Gray and I said,
your entrance into the episode is exactly how I imagined it would be.
Script 1: Ash flutters down from the sky and falls through the broken roof of an abandoned
firehouse.
A hand reaches up to touch the falling wisps of gray.
Like snowflakes the ash disintegrates into the palm of an 18-year-old named Harlan Briggs.
He holds still in this slow motion moment, fingers reaching into the air.
And he's not the only one. The place is packed.
The moment the ash disappears from his hand, the beat of the music drops and bodies snap
back into movement, dancing to the electronic sounds pumping out of speakers stacked against
the walls.
It's a pop-up nightclub, a one-time-only party at an abandoned firehouse to give a not so
subtle wink at the wildfires plaguing the city.
A DJ Spins underneath the grid of laser light for a diverse mostly queer crowd.
[light techno music]
[beat drops]
Jeff Davis: When he watched it, he was just blown away by it.
And it's just got a certain quality of image and color and framing.
Jason Ensler, who is the director of the pilot, and Rich Paisley who was the DP - I think
they did a phenomenal job setting the look of the show and I love it.
It's different from Teen Wolf. Teen Wolf was its own thing.
But Wolf Pack is a beautifully made show and I'm proud of it.
Paul Rea: Teen Wolf fans may recognize one of these guys.
We first saw Austin get yanked into the smoke on the highway, but then he showed up at the
hospital and now - just a few days later - in this scene overlooking the fire line, he looks
fully recovered.
If Austin looks familiar, it's because actor Rio Mangini was a huge part of the opening
episode of Teen Wolf Season 6.
Paul Rea: Rio Mangini, you brought him back from Teen Wolf.
Jeff Davis: I love that kid.
He is absolutely amazing.
Such a wonderful person.
I remembered from Teen Wolf - I think he was only 12 or 13 - and he had just such a good
energy about him and such a desire to do well and to act and to find the scene.
I was so happy to actually bring him back and see how he grew as an actor.
And he's great in this.
I think people are going to like him.
He plays a sort of conflicted character - morally.
Paul Rea: My favorite pairing of Kristen Ramsey and Ranger Briggs - Sarah Michelle Geller
and Rodrigo Santoro.
Jeff Davis: My God that man comes on screen and he's just magnetic and you just want to
watch him.
Paul Rea: I call it "Scully and Smolder".
Jeff Davis: I love that, that's great. Did you come with that? Brilliant.
Paul Rea: That's the pairing Scully and smolder.
Jeff Davis: And Rodrigo is a massive star, rightfully massive star, in Brazil but it's
time for the rest of the world to get to know him.
And I have felt incredibly fortunate to get him and honestly it was the same thing as Sarah.
When they mentioned his name, I was like "We're not going to get Rodrigo Santoro.
Paul Rea: How important was that International appeal to you when you were casting that part.
Jeff Davis: It was huge, Teen Wolf is very big in Brazil.
And II don't write shows for just an American audience. I write it for anyone.
I love International television. I love stories that come from other cultures, so we wanted
to write something that felt like it could be watched anywhere.
Jeff Davis: Well one of the things I definitely wanted to do with this show was do a city
as opposed to a town.
Every horror show out there seems to be a small-town horror show.
And I remember seeing things like, online people would comment about how Beacon Hills
has a nightclub now or Beacon Hills has a really large police station.
I'm sitting there going, there's not an invisible barrier around Beacon Hills.
They can drive to the next town or the next city.
But one of the concerted efforts in this show was to make it a city.
My intention was to go more urban werewolf this time.
And of course we got the tax credit in Georgia and I'm like - okay we're back in the woods.
Paul Rea: But not so much, because the running across the rooftop scene with Blake is is
really beautiful.
The running down the street with Blake is really beautiful.
Jeff Davis: We got some great stuff out there and especially in Christian Taylor directed
two episodes.
People remember him because he directed Motel California from Teen Wolf.
And he's got some great urban scenes, so we did we did hit that part of it which I'm proud of.
Paul Rea: Talk to me about that amazing house. I mean, what the heck is going on there?
Jeff Davis: It's just a great house we found in Buckhead, in Georgia. We wanted to find
a house where we could stage at least two episodes and that had enough weird places
to give it a sort of haunted house feel, enough of an exterior.
I wanted a house that felt like it could be up somewhere in the hills of Bel-Air or around
Coldwater Canyon in LA.
One of those Old Hollywood-type houses where you could imagine some actor wasted away in
their later years and the house was eventually bought by someone else. You know?
So it's beautiful and we can still find places like that in in Georgia and Atlanta where
we shoot, which is great.
Paul Rea (VO): I read the pilot and then we had the big reveal that Sarah Michelle Geller
was going to be in the show how much did that change your vision for the show because I
know what a Buffy-caliber star can do to a production.
And I'm wondering how much did it change or or how much did the universe just warp around
her and accept her in?
Jeff Davis: I think it it definitely changed but it didn't completely rearrange to suit
a star .
It was always about the character for me and the character was the same character I had
envisioned when I first sat down to write the pilot without any actors in mind.
But, I mean, when you have someone like Sarah, you write for her!
Jeff Davis: I'm pretty good with it actually. I always say the same thing at this point
- it's up to the gods now.
I did the best I could. I did the best work I could in the in the amount of time I was
given in the with all the parameters I was given.
So really it's... Did we please ourselves when we've watched the final product?
Yes we did.
There were moments when I was watching in the final color correction and sound mix where
I was like - okay that works - so that makes me happy.