I had the opportunity to interview the stars of my new favorite HULU show SHUT EYE at NYCC 2017. I knew nothing about the show before my interview. I binged the first season and devoured the screeners provided by HULU. This show is unlike anything else on TV right now! I’m thrilled I had the opportunity to learn about SHUT EYE first hand which is a fringe benift of covering Pop Culture. Shut Eye is a tale that is uniquely American and familiar, yet it takes unexpected turns that I can’t spoil for you. Once I meet the principals at the Con I and started watching the first season for this piece I was hooked!
Charlie Haverford (Jeffrey Donovan) is a scammer with a small chain of fortune- telling storefronts and contracts building tricks for a family that controls the business in the greater chunk of Los Angeles.
A blow to the head from a client’s angry boyfriend intersects with a hypnosis session while auditioning a new “clairvoyant,” and suddenly, a man whose entire life has been based on fraud begins to see and feel some very real and fundamental truths.
Charlie’s wife Linda (KaDee Strickland) is sick and tired of their mediocre life and wants to break away from Fonso (Angus Sampson), the single father who runs the Marks family’s psychic empire and controls the Haverford’s future.
Isabella Rossellini co-stars as Rita, the cunning, seductive and sadistic matriarch of the Marks clan. Shut Eye stars Jeffrey Donovan, KaDee Strickland, Isabella Rossellini, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Susan Misner, Angus Sampson and David Zayas. Shut Eye is created and executive produced by Les Bohem. Executive producers also include Mark Johnson, Melissa Bernstein, David Hudgins and Larysa Kondracki.
Hulu’s Shut Eye is adding former Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi to its ranks.
Mandvi has booked a recurring role on the psychic drama. In the first season, fake psychic scammer (Donovan) starts to experience visions that may or may not be real. Mandvi is Pazhani “Paz” Kapoor, the sole survivor of a cholera outbreak who found himself able to communicate with those who perished from the beyond.
Now, he’s a spiritual healer with a worldwide following. After being banned in Germany and other European countries, Paz sets up in L.A., (of course) where he plies his trade as a spiritual guru through his popular new-age seminars. Viewers first meet Paz through Dr. Nora White (Susan Misner) when she offers his guidance to Linda (KaDee Strickland) to help Charlie (Donovan) make sense of his visions. Through Paz, Charlie will learn there is more than meets the eye with the mysterious mystic!
It’s a hilarious and insightful interview –
With their future uncertain, Charlie (Donovan) and Linda (Strickland) now more than ever need to completely trust one another, but that’s never been easy for these two unrelenting con-artists. The Marks family faces similar uncertainty as their home has quite literally been taken from them.
This season everyone struggles to find their true “home.”
Both actors talk about the use of flashbacks in season 2 to illustrate how far their characters have fallen and what’s at stake in finding a way forward! I asked Donovan & Strickland:
“Tell us a little about your roles. How have our characters developed from season one to season two?”
“Season one you kinda got thrown into the mix and you had to play catch up to know what’s going on with the Haverfords and the Gypsies. Season two is about the past. Right off the bat they are going to flashback to when Charlie & Linda met it’s not just a one off, it’s going to go back throughout the season. It’s kind of an interesting device because it shows you 90% of who they are now but that %10 of who they used to be.” -Jeffery Donovan (Charlie Haverford)
It’s a terrific in-depth take on the show that needs to be seen to believed!
I’ve seen screeners of the first three episodes of SHUT EYE Season 2 that I’ll review without spoilers right before the December 6th premiere. Suffice to say you REALLY need to get on board. HULU continues to impress with quality in house exclusives and I predict SHUT EYE is the next breakout. If you haven’t yet, catch up on SHUT EYE season one now!
All 10 episodes of Shut Eye stream on Wednesday, December 6 only on Hulu.
Shut Eye is produced by TriStar Television.
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Art credit- Author/ NYCC / HULU