Ayla Ruby
The Spiderwick Chronicles has been a smash hit for Roku, and we were excited to chat with series stars Christian Slater (yes, that Christian Slater) and Joy Bryant about what appealed to them about this series bringing their characters to life.
The show is the latest and greatest adaptation of the hit fantasy children’s book series by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. More than a decade ago, director Mark Waters adapted the book into a feature film. The television adaptation of the series bounced around to find a streaming home before finally landing at Roku. With Roku’s The Spiderwick Chronicles, we get to spend eight episodes in the ancestral Spiderwick mansion, with secret faeries, evil ogres, siblings being siblings, and more.
Joy Bryant plays Helen Grace, mom to fraternal twins Jared (Lyon Daniels) and Simon (Noah Cottrell) and their sister Mallory (Mychala Lee). They have returned to Henson, Michigan, after things went a bit sideways in their old home of Brooklyn, NYC. For Bryant, The Spiderwick Chronicles was the opportunity to get creative play in a genre that she’d never done before.
Christian Slater has some evil overlord energy concealed within his character. As the ogre Mulgarath turned Dr. Dorian Brauer, he’s an eight-foot-tall villain who just can’t leave the town of Henson or the Grace family alone. For Slater, it was a chance to be both scary and vulnerable as an actor, have a ton of freedom to make the character his.
We talked for a short time over Zoom, but it was a memorable conversation. Watch or read it below.
Ayla Ruby: Hi, I am Ayla Ruby from Awards Radar.
Christian Slater: Hi.
Ayla Ruby: Hi. It’s nice to meet you both. So I’m just going to jump right in. I’d love to know what made you guys want to do Spiderwick and kind of what grabbed you about your characters?
Christian Slater: Joy?
Joy Bryant: Oh, okay.
Christian Slater: Why not?
Joy Bryant: For me, it’s like one… I’ve never, it was my first time in a genre like this, so that’s very exciting. Also, the series being based on this really beloved and popular book series in the film. I had seen the movie before, but hadn’t read the books, but just knew how I loved the story. And just the opportunity again, to play, I’m pretty good at playing a mom. And this time playing a mom, like teenage kids is great, especially the cast that we have. But yeah, I mean, just the opportunity to do something different and fun, but also something that was very grounded and family oriented just really, really appealed to me. And then the opportunity to work with Christian was like, yeah, that’s fine. I’m with that.
Christian Slater: Yeah, I felt similarly. Working with Joy was wonderful. It was a joy. She was great. I mean, we hit it off, I think immediately, which I was thrilled about. Go ahead, joy. Are you saying something?
Joy Bryant: No
Christian Slater: Yeah. Yeah. And it was a fun character to get to mess around with. The children’s books are great, and any chance you have to play an ogre is something I recommend. I mean, Mike Myers did it, and for me to get the opportunity to be a part of this fantastical world was something I’ve always loved fantasy, Sci-fi. And to know that I’m transforming from this very scary creature, knowing that was sort of inside of my head made it possible for me to feel like I had no limitations and a lot of freedom to do whatever I wanted with the character.
Ayla Ruby: Awesome. You both had these really cool careers. Was there anything that was from filming that was maybe super gratifying or even challenging to pull off as an actor?
Christian Slater: In this show?
Ayla Ruby: Yes.
Christian Slater: Well, I guess being scary, but also being a little bit vulnerable at times. And I guess when you’re playing a character like this, you never see it as this monster or bad guy. There’s always a legitimate, to a certain degree agenda for the character to be on. So I just wanted to find a nice balance there as much as possible. So you could say that was a challenge.
Joy Bryant: Yeah, and I would say for me, I think going into it not really knowing how it was all going to go down. I mean, again, this is the first time that I’m in this genre, right? So I was a little bit, oh, kind of intimidated like, “Oh, what about a green screen? How am I going to…” But actually with there’s so many of the… so much, they created this world that you didn’t take, it wasn’t a far leap or hard to sort of imagine yourself in it. I mean, from the sets and the characters. I mean, Mulgarath like eight foot tall, scary looking thing. So it’s like the more and more that I just relaxed into it, the easier it became. But it was a little intimidating in the beginning for me.
Christian Slater: You were a great mom.
Joy Bryant: Thank you.
Christian Slater: Oh, go ahead.
Ayla Ruby: Thank you both so much for chatting. I appreciate it.
Joy Bryant: Thank you. Thank you.
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