\u201cIt\u2019s crazy that it took as long as it did, but let\u2019s be real about it: the studios spent seven days at the negotiating table over the course of 140 days, which is ridiculous,\u201d Forsythe says. \u201cThis could have been dealt with so much sooner. I\u2019m glad it\u2019s over, but it\u2019s amazing how much this has disrupted everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Wolf Like Me creator Abe Forythe is glad to be back at work after the seven-month-long Writers Guild of America strike.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Ben King<\/cite><\/p>\n The 42-year-old\u2019s workload for his genre-busting series, which has returned for a second season on Stan in Australia and Peacock in North America, is now front-loaded with promotion. (Stan is owned by Nine, publisher of this article.) As members of the American actors union, SAG-AFTRA, the stars of the show Isla Fisher and Josh Gad are still on strike. And so, on a recent morning, Forsythe did 14 consecutive interviews with American media outlets.<\/p>\n One of the key negotiating points in the strike Forsythe followed closely was securing a mandated number of writers working on a show\u2019s season. The WGA considered the issue crucial, as does Forsythe, but he has his own input. Like a few other creators, such as Yellowstone<\/em>\u2019s Taylor Sheridan and Mike White of The White Lotus<\/em>, Forsythe writes every line of his show. He has to.<\/p>\n \u201cWith this show, because it\u2019s so personal and there\u2019s so much of me in it, I\u2019m required to sit down and write each page myself,\u201d Forsythe says. \u201cWriting it informs me how I\u2019ll direct it. Pre-production is figuring out line by line how I\u2019ll shoot it.\u201d<\/p>\n A pandemic production that debuted in January 2022, Wolf Like Me<\/em> has a (literally) wild concept. Reclusive Adelaide advice columnist Mary (Fisher) meets single father Gary (Gad) and his daughter, Emma (Ariel Donoghue), and they forge a connection strong enough to breach her secret: Mary\u2019s a hungry werewolf, complete with full moon transformation.<\/p>\n Josh Gad, Isla Fisher and Ariel Donoghue in the new season of Wolf Like Me.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Narelle Portanier\/Peacock<\/cite><\/p>\n It\u2019s an idea drawn from the very heart of horror storytelling, stretching back centuries into folklore and canonical texts, but for Forsythe lycanthropy is also a way of accessing the deeply personal: finding love a second time, letting someone into your life, and adding a partner to your child\u2019s life. Wolf Like Me<\/em>\u2019s first season was This Is Us<\/em> with fangs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fun thing with genre is using it as an avenue to explore. The werewolf represents a lot of things to me, but I\u2019ve since discovered that it represents a lot of different things to other people,\u201d Forsythe says. \u201cSeason two speaks to the fear of bringing a child into the world and not knowing what it might be, or whether as a parent you\u2019ll damage it. Mary is literally scared of eating her baby.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSeason two is continuing things that I have dealt with or are living through at the moment. I have been fortunate to find these characters and I wouldn\u2019t want to continue this if I didn\u2019t have that experience,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019ve given up three years of my life to work on this show and if I\u2019m not being informed by the characters as much as I inform them then it\u2019s just so much harder to go to work and find satisfaction and completion.\u201d<\/p>\n Shot once more in Sydney (though the show\u2019s setting is Adelaide), the new episodes of Wolf Like Me<\/em> are an expansive addition: larger cast, knotty concepts, nutty twists, and an increased digital effects budget. The show\u2019s first season withheld the on-screen presence of Mary\u2019s snarling alter-ego, whereas the second season can\u2019t wait to let her snarl. There\u2019s also a juicy new foil in Anton, Mary\u2019s friend and former professor, played with haughty charm by Edgar Ramirez (Zero Dark Thirty<\/em>).<\/p>\n Edgar Ramirez joins the cast of Wolf Like Me as Mary\u2019s (Isla Fisher) friend and former professor.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Narelle Portanier<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cWhen we cast Edgar he was beyond perfect. I\u2019d written it in one way and when he came in he didn\u2019t change a word of dialogue, but just added all these interesting, thoughtful layers,\u201d Forsythe says. \u201cMy direction was that he needs to seduce everyone in the show except Gary. He came in as the disruptor, but you can totally understand his point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n Every declaration by Anton draws a muttered retort from Gary, a skill that\u2019s perfectly in Gad\u2019s comic wheelhouse as an everyman given to manic escalation. Creator and actor first worked together on Forsythe\u2019s 2019 movie, Little Monsters<\/em>, a romantic-comedy about a kindergarten excursion during a zombie outbreak (it\u2019s a very Abe Forsythe concept), and can finish each other\u2019s creative sentences.<\/p>\n By contrast, Forsythe hadn\u2019t worked with Fisher prior to Wolf Like Me<\/em>, so it\u2019s not surprising that with the second season he has an even better grasp on her talents. A gifted comedienne and flinty confrontational voice who too often has been underused by her directors, Fisher has never had a role this sustained and eclectic.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never really encountered an actor like her before \u2013 she\u2019s so unique and makes such strong, unpredictable choices,\u201d Forsythe says. \u201cIsla has an incredible energy and by the end of season one I felt like I knew how to write her the best possible situations of conflict. She has this crazy energy, so if you bottle it up and stop it coming out you can still see it simmering before it finally does come out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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