Interview: Director Rupert Wyatt on Bringing THE EXORCIST to TV

Tonight, Fox debuts their brand new series The Exorcist, which brings William Peter Blatty’s iconic novel to television for the first time ever. Daily Dead had the opportunity to chat with The Exorcist’s pilot director and executive producer Rupert Wyatt about his experiences bringing this new chapter of terror to network television.

Wyatt, no stranger to handling iconic properties (he also helmed Rise of the Planet of the Apes) discussed his approach to the inaugural episode, how the story mimics some of the political issues the city of Chicago is facing these days, assembling the cast members, and more.

Obviously, this isn't the same story as the original, but could you discuss how you approached Blatty’s novel and decided how that would translate into a modern television series?

Rupert Wyatt: Well, the inspiration was all right there in the William Peter Blatty novel. What Jeremy [Slater], the creator of the show, looked to do was place the events of our show and the series into a contemporary context, and, of course, give a nod to the [William] Friedkin film—those events happened in the 1970s.

Now, we are forty-plus years after those events, but those events exist, and they occurred within the realms of our mythology, but we are dealing with totally new characters. Of course, we set our story in Chicago because that seemed like a great setting.

And the similarities are in the sense of demonic possession being an event, a sequence of events that begin to happen within the context of this small family unit, and also the city, the wide city as a whole. Really, that’s where the similarities lie, specifically; other than that, it’s a completely new narrative with new characters.

Was there a particular reason why you guys decided that now was the perfect time to adapt The Exorcist for television?

Rupert Wyatt: Well, you’d have to ask Fox that question specifically, as to why they chose to green-light it now, but I would say, from my perspective, it’s always interesting to me when the world is in a place socioeconomically, or politically, where there are world events happening currently that can play into the notion that evil is becoming more pervasive in our society. Now, we as a society are dealing with things, in a very real-world sense up close, whereas ten, fifteen years ago, that was less the case. We were living in more of a golden era.

Inevitably, what happens is, entertainment as an art form mirrors that, and so the idea for me, and why I was a big proponent and driver of setting the film in Chicago, was because I thought it was a great “ground zero” for a large, historically vibrant and narrative city that has a big Catholic community. The church is very powerful there, but at the same time, it is a church that is dealing with modern controversies and scandals; it is not the great institution that it once was.

Then, on a political level, there is a lot of corruption within Chicago, historically speaking, and of course everything that’s happening there now. Then, in terms of the violence, you only have to pick up the newspapers to see the murder rate in Chicago right now is that of Los Angeles and New York combined this year. It’s a city where, if you were to say the devil wanted to infiltrate our world, and start looking to proliferate on a pandemic level, Chicago would be it.

Can you talk at all about the casting and your experiences working on the pilot?

Rupert Wyatt: Overall, I’ve got to say that the experience of making the pilot was really, really fun, and creatively really inspirational for me—that doesn’t always happen when one does a pilot. As the director, you’re coming into something that’s preconceived, so for this, I had a real opportunity on the creative level to collaborate with [executive producer] Rolin Jones and the creator, Jeremy Slater, in a really equal way.

Casting-wise, it was a brain trust. We essentially got together and looked for really interesting character actors, like Alan Ruck, who’s a wonderful, amazing actor. Then, there’s Ben Daniels, who plays Father Marcus, who was an actor I’d seen on House of Cards, and I checked out Flesh and Bone as well, and I just loved him for all his world-weariness. We pushed very hard for casting him.

Alfonso [Herrera] I had seen on Sense8, and really loved him, and we wanted to find an actor that represented—and the character was written in this way—the modern Catholic Church. When you travel around Chicago, you see a lot of the old blue-collar immigrant neighborhoods that were, and still are, fundamentally Catholic. Whereas forty, fifty years ago, they were Polish or Irish, they are now predominantly Mexican or Latino in general, and so we decided that would be the best face for the modern Catholic Church, so Alfonso was it.

Then, Geena [Davis] is someone who needs no introduction. It really was just incredible that she stepped up when we asked her to and said, “Yes.” As an ensemble, it was actually very easy to cast; in terms of the choices that we wanted, we were lucky enough to get, but we wanted real diversity in the ensemble.

What do you feel has been your greatest challenge in bringing the world of The Exorcist to the small screen?

Rupert Wyatt: Well, I never saw it as a small screen. The best stories these days are told on television, and they’re incredibly ambitious for all good reasons, and it’s a shame in many ways that mainstream cinema has gradually been eroded and taken over by TV, in my opinion, because I still love going to the cinema. I do think it’s the golden age of TV, and one reason for that is it is becoming inherently more cinematic, in terms of the making of it.

The process of making this pilot was really wonderful for me, because I was given a really good amount of time. I was given a decent budget, wonderful actors, and an incredible crew to mount something, so I approached and shot this as if I were making a feature, and the same narrative choices I would make if I were making a theatrical feature played into this as well. It really was my intention to light it, design it, and shoot it in as ambitious a way as possible, because that’s what modern television audiences expect these days.