The Changeling is, to put it simply, not for the faint of heart. Adapted for television by Kelly Marcel from Victor LaValle’s award-winning novel of the same name, the horror fantasy series follows Apollo (played expertly by Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield), a rare book dealer who falls for Emma (the captivating Clark Backo), a librarian in New York City who isn’t initially sold on him. After some persistence, Emma agrees to go on a date, and the two quickly realize they couldn’t be more perfect for each other. They waste no time getting married and starting a family, and Apollo absolutely loves being a dad.

But isn’t this a horror series? Oh, yes, it very much is. Emma starts behaving differently and is unable to connect with their baby, Brian, with roads leading potentially back to her solo trip to Brazil and that red string bracelet she got from a mysterious stranger. Apollo’s worst nightmare becomes a chilling reality when Emma goes missing. Not only is Apollo forced to confront his past as he ventures on a dangerous and fantastical journey to reunite with his family, but he must deal with powerful forces that are beyond one’s wildest imagination. There’s something (quite literally) in the water.

Adapting such a complex and nuanced novel is no easy feat, but thankfully such a story landed in the right hands with Kelly Marcel. The Changeling showrunner is no stranger to adaptations, with writing credits including 50 Shades of Grey, Saving Mr. Banks (of which she was nominated for a BAFTA), and Marvel’s Venom franchise starring Tom Hardy. During our 1-on-1 conversation, Marcel talked about how dedicated of an artist Stanfield is, what it was like creating the whimsical underground world in the show, how she had to convince producers to cast a non-actor in one of the show’s biggest roles, and her directorial debut with Venom 3.

Image via Apple TV+

COLLIDER: You’ve adapted many things, which is very impressive. Going back to when you were growing up, was there a show, a person, a movie that kind of made you go, “I want to tell stories, too”?

KELLY MARCEL: My dad was a director but he did a lot of these very low budget movies, and completely different to the kind of stuff that I do. He was a proper sci-f head. But I just always saw him kind of struggling to tell these stories and find money to tell these stories, and I guess I was just really inspired by the fact that he sort of… It didn’t really matter how they did or not, he just didn’t give up. He’s my inspiration for that, but also, I worked in a video store for a really long time in my twenties. And I think that’s where just having access to every movie, every TV show, every box set was just completely sort of mind-bending and incredible and just seeing the different ways that different artists told stories, and the different ways in which you can visually realize them. So I don’t think it was any one thing specifically, but I do think my dad and that video store had a lot to do with it.

That’s really sweet. And you also started in acting–

MARCEL: Oh… yes. (Laughs.)

Was it a quick, “I’m not an actor, I’m going to write” sort of thing?

MARCEL: So quick. My mom, you know, God bless her. (Laughs.) And this show is about moms. I think she wanted to be an actress. Both me and my siblings were kind of pushed into it at an early age. Like we were young, I think I was three when I did my first job. I would just say it wasn’t a personal choice. But I also… I was not brilliant at school. I kind of didn’t fit in. I didn’t take any exams. I have no formal qualifications. I pretty much left when I was about 15, and so the acting, because it was there it was sort of a useful income, but it was something I became increasingly embarrassed by. I’d just be so, so full of anxiety and terror anytime someone put a camera on me and I’m the same today. Like, these guys were like, “We’re gonna do Comic Con and you’re gonna have a glam team!” I’m much happier here, just in my pajamas in front of a computer, so the acting thing was not for me. My sister stayed in it, but it was not for me. But it was helpful because it taught me things. Sometimes you get a script and something might sound great when you write it but is completely unsayable once you put it in somebody’s mouth. So I learned a lot.

At least you learned and you’re not just totally scarred.

MARCEL: Well, and that. (Laughs.)

Trauma!

MARCEL: (Laughs.) Yay! No Changeling without it.

It’s true! Very good segue. What was it about Victor’s novel that stood out to you?

MARCEL: I get sent a lot of adaptations, a lot of books to read and this one fell in my lap. I had just had a baby, my baby was six months old. So I was like, “Wow, this is really terrifying!” And speaking to me as a new mom. Victor’s book is very much from Apollo’s point of view really, because that’s the point of view that he knows and writes about as a father. But it was also really speaking to me as a new parent. I just loved it and I was so intrigued by it and I was so intrigued by the way in which he tells stories and how he really believes in fairy tales, and sitting around a campfire, and really the slow burn of something and everyone sitting together for a long time to listen to a tale. I felt that way as I was reading the book. But I had done adaptations before and so I really wanted to meet him, too. I flew to New York and I sat down and had a long lunch with him and we were there for hours and hours talking about our traumas and our past and our lives and finding that we had so much in common with each other that by the end of that lunch. I was just like, “I absolutely want to adapt this book. I love this man.” And not only that, he must come every step of the way. So Victor is a massive part of the show. He was the first person to read every script as it was written, he was on set every day with us. It’s very much our show. Not my show.

And he narrated it!

MARCEL: And he narrated it! He’s the perfect, most beautiful voice for it.

It also just gave it a storybook feeling that he narrated it.

MARCEL: Because we’re using his voice, you know, that he is narrating words that are from his novels… there’s no one else that should say them other than him.

Image via Apple TV+

I love plays and so I was very pleased with the pilot. It just felt like a play to me, the back and forth, especially the dinner scenes. It kind of eased us into the story and almost tricked us into thinking we were getting a sweet story, and then everything unfolds. What was it like with LaKeith and Clark on set? What did they bring to the characters?

MARCEL: Well, both of them are extraordinary, extraordinary performers. They’re just crazy, crazy, good. So professional. These people are on set before call time, they know their lines backwards. Clark and LaKeith spent time outside of the show really getting to know each other, running lines, talking to each other deeply about who Emma was, who Apollo was, what their relationship to each other was. They really worked hard to build that electricity that you see between the two of them, that naturalism, her laughing, him staring at her. It’s all stuff that’s really carefully constructed by those actors. You can read any interview about LaKeith, he’s pretty open about his life, and so I think he brings a layer to Apollo that comes from his own childhood, his own traumas, and also his own story as a dad. He’s a layered, layered human, and I think just what’s so interesting about him is how he’s able to kind of peel the onion with Apollo. And I think Clark is absolutely equal to him and that she has all of those layers too. Because if you think about Emma, Emma is really three different characters throughout this season, and that’s not easy to do. They brought everything to the show. And LaKeith not least brought himself as a producer. It took us nearly seven years to get this show made. There were many, many trials and tribulations along the way, and LaKeith attached himself and he stuck with the show and he became a producer on the show. He is one of the main reasons that we were able to get it up and on the screen.

It’s also just aesthetically a beautiful show, especially the underground world. Could you talk a little bit about what it was like creating that? Because it was fun but it was also disturbing.

MARCEL: Lester Cohen, our production designer, is an absolute genius. Just one of the most incredible people I’ve ever worked with not only building the underground world but building the Elk Hotel. And if you look in the underground world, there’s lots and lots of Easter eggs and, and I really hope people are reading the graffiti that’s on the walls and just looking in all the scenes about things that Lester hides in these worlds. We built it in Toronto, I think it was an abandoned factory. No windows. And so that was where we built that kind of amazing bit where everybody lives. But the actual subway stuff we shot, we stopped some trains and we went down into a subway in the middle of the night, because obviously we had to shoot in an hour or many hours that there were no commuters, and we actually built in the subway tunnels as well, and that was kind of crazy. (Laughs.) You’re on train tracks and everybody’s squeezing, and we came out… our noses were full of dust and people were coughing up black stuff for days and days and days. So pretty painful shooting that stuff, night after night, and exhausting. But so worth it, I think, to give that show that feel. It is a beautiful show and the aesthetic is all about what [director] Melina set up in the pilot and that the other directors kind of stayed faithful to, and of course Lester’s production design, and Anne Crabtree, who is one of the most brilliant costume designers ever.

I kind of want it to be an immersive experience. I want it to be an attraction somewhere.

MARCEL: They should do that! That’s such a good idea.

Image via Apple TV+

I feel like there’s three separate worlds. We have the underground, the main world, and then we have the island with Cal. Episode 5 almost felt like a different show just because everything shifted. I like how Apollo was even saying, “What’s going on?” It was kind of comforting for him to also not know what’s happening. What was it like crafting Cal and how did you do that shift to the island?

MARCEL: The show kind of clearly states that it’s a fairy tale right up the top, but because it’s so much set in a real world, a real New York City, every single location is real. That island is real, North Brother Island is really there, you can go to it. You’ll get arrested, but you can go. (Laughs.) So it feels real. I think the shift happens when William and Apollo are on the boat and they go under the Throgs Neck Bridge and you kind of feel this moment. And we say, “Sometimes you cross into a portal that you don’t know you’ve crossed into,” and I think that’s where it fully becomes a fairy tale. But also it’s clear that every time you’ve seen the water or somebody going into the water or as they’re going towards that island, there is clearly something in the water, underneath the water, so we know that there’s potentially a creature or whatever it is under there. Obviously that red string has a lot to answer for, so we’ve kind of been crossing these worlds in a way that I think we do if we believe in any kind of spirituality or light candles or wear red strings. We bring those other worlds into our worlds on the daily, but that moment there under the bridge is where they fully go to that other place and to a place of magic. Crafting Cal was really cool. Part of what I love about the island of women is they’re not perfect. We’ve been going through this Me Too movement of women not being believed, and me and Victor talked a lot about what would it be like if a bunch of women got together and said like, “Fuck all men. We’re all gonna go live on an island together and it’s gonna be peaceful and we’re gonna live in harmony there forever.” No, that’s not going to happen because that wouldn’t be real, either. You’re going to have problems, you’re going to have disagreements and issues, and so I think part of what I loved about Cal is she’s a deeply problematic person. She’s trying to do the right thing and she’s trying to lead these women. But, you know, as William says, she has a past, too. That’s kind of the theme of the show is that nobody’s perfect. These are not perfect parents because you cannot be a perfect parent. You can only do the best that you can and Cal is not the perfect leader. She can only do the best that she can. And we’re all just kind of stumbling through life winging it in a way and, and I think that was very integral to how we crafted Cal.

I wanted her to have a spinoff! I want to know more about Cal.

MARCEL: And it’s Jane Kaczmarek! I was just like, “Oh my God, we get to bring Jane Kaczmarek to the show!” which was so cool.

Samuel, he broke my brain. He gave me vibes of The Shining at some point, his performance was just so disturbing! How was his character on the page compared to his performance?

MARCEL: Well, firstly, he’s not an actor, he has never acted before this show. He’s the lead singer of Future Islands, a band that I was a very big fan of. We were trying to cast William Wheeler and we knew we wanted somebody that was sort of somewhat recognizable but not so recognizable that you couldn’t feel like, “Oh, maybe he’s just a cameo at the end of Episode 3 and we never see him again.” You had to kind of not know him, but it was a big huge role as well, so we needed someone who you kind of knew. He was written exactly like that on the page, with the screaming, and the Norwegian, and going from being this, sort of nerdy, bookish man to a complete monster. And I went to see a Future Island show. and [Sam] goes from weeping ballads where the audience is in tears, and he’s in tears, to ripping his face off on stage and screaming about being, like, a tin man. And I was with a friend at their show here in New Orleans where I live and I was like, “Oh my God, I think that’s Kindergarten. I think that’s William Wheeler.” And then I went to like my producers and everybody else and slowly kind of had to convince everyone that I was right. And they were like, “But he’s never acted before!” And so, he had to go through a process, he had to do self tapes. He went and met Victor, Victor signed off. I had him go meet Melina, she signed off. I just knew his stage presence was so phenomenal. I knew that he could bring it. I just knew he could do it. But it was nerve wracking both for him and for us. I’m really proud of him and that performance because that must have been terrifying for him.

Did it take a lot of convincing him?

MARCEL: Yeah, he didn’t want to do it. (Laughs.) And also, he was just like, “I’m kind of busy. I’m like… touring.” They’re a touring band. They’re quite successful in their own right and I don’t think he had any intentions of being an actor whatsoever. I’m quite convincing. His immediate response was no, so there was a lot of, “No, but you don’t understand, you have to do this and I won’t stop.” And actually, it really did become a huge deal because we then had to shoot the show around his touring schedule. So he would tour, then he would come back, do some shooting, then go tour and be exhausted as well because those tours are hard, they’re really hard. I don’t even know if he’d ever do it again. If there was a Season 2, yes, he would, but I don’t know if he’d go and act in anything else.

What was it like finding the tone of the show, because it’s ominous consistently, but it’s also super sweet at times with Emma and Apollo. Was that found in post-production or did you have it the whole way?

MARCEL: I think we know it from the beginning and it has little moments of comedy as well, Patrice is funny. I think we wanted to mix tone and I think we wanted people to think like, “It’s a love story!” and then like, “Oh God, no, what is this?” We’re really lucky that Apple gave us the freedom. This is a show that you probably need to feel rather than watch. We’re not trying to do a procedural beginning, middle and an end, and I understand that that can be incredibly frustrating for people, but we always knew we were going to ask you to come on a ride and this ride was going to be a long ride and we were going to set up a bunch of questions and then hopefully one day we’ll be able to give you the answers to them. But I think tonally, if you read the book, the book tonally is also both terrifying and sweet and funny, and I think we just really wanted to try and capture that in the show as well. I think each of those characters, it’s not just that the show has this mixed tone, it’s that each character kind of brings all of these different layers as well.

I definitely want to read the book now.

MARCEL: You’ll love it and you’ll know what happens.

Image via Marvel Entertainment 

I’m sure you can’t talk too much about Venom 3, but I’m very excited because it’s your directorial debut. I also love that you’ve had a long collaboration history with Tom Hardy. I know you have the theater company with him, which is wonderful. What’s it like working with him on this franchise, and what can you tease about the third movie?

MARCEL: I’ll get killed if I say anything about Venom 3, but I will say, yes, Tom and I have had a long collaborative history with each other. We love each other. Love working with each other. Both of us are passionate about the Venom franchise. It’s just really a joy for us to be able to get to do this third one together. I can’t really tease you anything about it other than it’s going to be amazing. Tom and I genuinely just have a blast with each other whenever we get to work together. There’s a lot of laughing that happens.

I like that he’s involved in the writing as well.

MARCEL: Yeah, on Venom 2, he got a “story by” [credit]. We sit for months and do this on Zoom, or in person, or hole up in hotel rooms, board rooms, you know, for weeks and really bash out the story, and he is Eddie and he is Venom. It’s a weird one. There’s just no way of doing these movies without the amount of input that Tom gives. He’s really, really dedicated to what happens to these characters.

All episodes of The Changeling are available to stream on Apple TV+.