John Logan Talks PENNY DREADFUL: Exploring Sexuality

How will sexuality be explored in this series?

LOGAN:  Part of the motivation of what makes us a human being is how we respond erotically to the world around us, and it’s just as true for these characters, as everything else.  One of the reasons that it’s so liberating to work on Showtime and to work in paid cable is that, in my very first discussions with Sam Mendes, we talked about, “Why do we want to tell this story?”  We can tell it without gloss of years of television shows and movies and different novelizations.  We can go back to those sacred, essential texts and try to treat them with a granular reality.  And Juan Bayona, our great director for the first two episodes, talked about how, for something to be frightening, it has to be true.  That became my watchcry, and that’s just as true for the most exalted and generous acts of the character, as for the most monstrous and depraved.  That’s true for blood.  It’s true for sex.  We’re trying to really grapple with these characters, in all of their extremes, sexually as well as in terms of violence and psychology. 

Who are some of the other characters in this story?

LOGAN:  In broad strokes, the big four are Vanessa Ives (Green), Ethan Chandler (Hartnett), Sir Malcolm Murray (Dalton), who is an African explorer based on Sir Richard Burton and Stanley Baker, and some of the other explorers, and Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), who is probably the most like the character in the book out of all the literary characters.  Reeve Carney plays Dorian Gray, from Oscar Wilde’s great novel.  Billie Piper plays a woman named Brona Croft, who is a fictional creation.  She’s a good Belfast girl that gets embroiled with Ethan and some other characters, and Danny Sapani plays Sembene, who is an ally of Sir Malcolm’s from his African exploring days.  That’s the general ensemble.

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