[Editor’s Note: Spoilers for Silo Season 1]

The Big Picture

Ahead of Season 2, Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with
Silo
showrunner Graham Yost about the hit Apple TV+ series.
Yost talks about getting involved with Apple TV+, why the show’s writers have scripts written well in advance, and big changes made to the show’s characters and Season 1 finale.
Yost also discusses how the Keanu Reeves-led action flick
Speed
jump-started his career and whether he believes there’s more to explore in the world of
Justified
.

What do Apple TV+’s massively popular shows like Silo, Slow Horses, and Masters of the Air have in common? Besides being based on books, Silo showrunner Graham Yost is somehow involved. He serves as an executive producer for all three, working diligently behind the scenes and as a writer for Silo, which he describes as less sci-fi and more of a “dystopian thriller” based on the bestselling book trilogy by Hugh Howey. The show, which has garnered critical acclaim since its premiere in 2023, stars Rebecca Ferguson (Dune: Part Two), and if Yost gets his way, the upcoming Season 2 will only open more doors for the series.

Silo is a project Yost sought out a long time ago, hooked by the “What the hell is going on?” aspect, he tells Collider’s Steve Weintraub. That’s exactly what’s grasped so many viewers after Season 1, too, and Yost digs into that big reveal from the finale. He talks about building the massive sets, block shooting, and why this series is best served with finished scripts well in advance. He also shares the plan they had for the original big reveal.

In addition to Silo, the writer-producer looks back on previous projects, like Speed with Keanu Reeves, the one he says jump-started his career, and how he was first introduced to Apple TV+. Yost also talks about his time spent on FX’s Justified, its spin-off series Justified: City Primeval, and if there’s more to explore in that universe. You can check out all of this and more in the full interview transcript below.

Silo Men and women live in a giant silo underground with several regulations which they believe are in place to protect them from the toxic and ruined world on the surface.Release Date May 5, 2023 Creator Graham Yost Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 2 Studio AMC Studios Expand

COLLIDER: You’ve done a lot of cool stuff in your career. If someone has actually never watched anything you’ve been involved with, what’s the first thing you’d like them watching and why?

GRAHAM YOST: That’s a good question because now, honestly, it just goes back so long. There’s the chronological version, which would start with Speed. There is the show that got away. The one that got away was a show called Boomtown on NBC, back in the early 2000s. It’s a show that I created where there was no IP. It was, in many ways, the closest thing to what I would do if I’d woken up at three in the morning. That was that kind of show. I’ve watched some of it recently. It doesn’t hold up as much as I’d hoped it would, but it was also a broadcast show long before streaming, even really at the very beginning of basic cable. So, it’s got its issues, but I’m very proud of that show. I’m proud of them all, because so much of it just becomes who you’re working with. So probably Boomtown. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find.

Image via NBC

I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but NBC, to me, is known as the network that takes these huge swings with weird shit. Most of them do not work, but yet they keep taking the swing, and I appreciate it.

YOST: Yeah, me too. Listen, I was a huge fan of West Wing. That was a huge swing. Who knew that a show about the White House is gonna work? And I looked forward to that every week.

If Not for Keanu Reeves and ‘Speed,’ ‘Silo’ Could Be a Totally Different Series
Image via 20th Century Fox

You touched on the fact that you wrote Speed, which a lot of people don’t realize. When did you realize, “Oh, wait, this film might be something that lasts?”

YOST: Well, the story I tell is I saw the elevator sequence, Jan [de Bont] showed me that, and it was pretty great. I saw the whole film at what was called, then, the Little Theater at the Fox lot. I remember, I swear to god, the thought went through my head when Jack, played by Keanu, jumps from the car that he’s commandeered onto the bus, “My life just changed. It just changed. I don’t know if the film is gonna make a lot of money, but it’s good. Jan shot it right. These guys, the performers, the actors, everyone’s got it right.” And frankly, Joss Whedon did a great job on the rewrite. I wrote a fairly funny script; he made it even funnier. So, that was the sense that it was gonna affect my career. The fact that it became a hit… Back then I was writing features for the next few years, and then happened to get back into television because of From the Earth to the Moon. So I’ve just been very lucky that that stuff has come along at the time that I was available to do it, and people wanted me to do it.

There Are More Stories to Tell With ‘Justified’
“[They] didn’t throw Boyd in just for shits and giggles.”
Image via FX

As a huge fan of Justified, I just have to ask, will we be getting more or was the last series the end?

YOST: We don’t know. I’ll be honest with that. FX, when that series came out last summer, they loved it, and it did well for them, but they just sunk so much money into Shōgun, and no one knows exactly what’s going on. The whole industry is playing this big game of musical chairs right now. It’s like, “Who’s gonna be standing and who’s gonna have a seat next year?” So, we hope, because there’s at least one more story to tell. Dave Andron and Michael Dinner, who ran City Primeval, didn’t throw Boyd [Holbrook] in just for shits and giggles. There’s an idea that that could go elsewhere. Working with Tim [Olyphant] and Walton [Goggins], and anyone else from the old show is just a joy.

But I gotta say, I joked about that one, that if it wasn’t very good, I could say, “Well, I wasn’t involved,” and if it was really good, I could say, “You’re welcome.” I was joking to Michael and Dave about it, I said, “I was not prepared that you would actually surpass the original series in points, in which case, man, you did a great job.” So, I loved it. I thought they really did a bang-up job.

I agree.

Apple TV+ Can’t Seem To Miss, So How Do They Do It?

Jumping into why we get to talk today. I’m a huge fan of Silo. I think that what you guys have done is fantastic. What is it about Apple TV? They are producing some of the best television by a mile with the streamers. Their sci-fi content is incredible, but all their shows are just so well done. What is it that goes on over there that makes it that their shows are so good?

YOST: What they pitched to me early on, because we’re heading towards five years since I’ve had a deal there — we started in 2019 — Jamie [Erlicht] and Zack [Van Amburg] said, “We want to do a curated service. We don’t want to do a volume business.” So they really spend a lot of time figuring out what shows they want to do. A lot of it is based on the concept, a lot of it is based on the people, and then also the actors that they’re gonna get into it. For example, the reason I ended up at Apple was I’d worked with them for a long stretch doing Justified and Sneaky Pete when they were at Sony, but what hooked me was Slow Horses. Then what got me to actually sign on the dotted line was they offered for me to work on Masters of the Air. I said, “Okay, so I’m in.” And then they said, “Oh, by the way, remember that thing that you tried to get involved with back when everyone was trying to get the TV rights to the Silo series? Yeah, we’re gonna go after that. How about that?” And I said, “Fantastic. I’m in.” So, that’s my story with them.

I watch their stuff, whether it’s Ted Lasso, of course, but also Shrinking. In terms of their comedy stuff, Severance. Now they’ve got a spade of historical stuff that is really, really cool. They do like their sci-fi. That’s worked very well for them. So, I would say that Silo, it’s sort of a sci-fi. Their term for launching the first season was a “dystopian thriller,” and I think that’s pretty much bang-on. I think that Blade Runner is a dystopian thriller, but it’s got more science fiction because it’s got flying cars and robots. This doesn’t have flying cars or robots, but it does have that sense of mystery, of, “What the hell is going on?” And that’s the thing that hooked me.

Completely. What do you think would surprise Silo fans to learn about the making of Silo?

YOST: A lot of the stuff is out there. Joanna Thapa, one of our producers, was part of finding a space outside of London, which was a big refrigeration warehouse where we knew that the big space was where we would build the stairs. We built three levels of the central silo, but with the blue screen and the this-and-the-that, and redressing it, it can look like any part of the silo we want it to look like. So that’s a big set, and it’s fun. Then they’ve also built it so it connects with an alley so we can do a big walk-and-talk with people. We haven’t done one of those full walk-and-talks, but first of all, the surprising thing is it’s freaking exhausting to work on the stairs. That would probably be the biggest. It’s not a surprise. People can see stuff online about the making of it, but the sets are big. Some are just absolutely enclosed, so we don’t have to do any visual effects at all, but other ones, then it’s a whole bunch of work at the end of the season.

Related Rebecca Ferguson on the ‘Silo’ Season 1 Finale, Season 2, and ‘Dune: Part Two’ [Exclusive] From major projects like ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ to producing & filming ‘Silo,’ Ferguson isn’t waiting around for things to happen.

When did you realize that Silo was gonna be something special? Because you can have great scripts, great actors, great everything, but it doesn’t resonate with the audience. When did you realize, “Oh, wait, people are really digging this show, and this could be something special?”

YOST: I think it was twofold. One was a call with Jamie Erlicht about three or four weeks into the run, and him saying, “The numbers are really good. It’s doing really well for us.” Then, when they would publicly say this is the best-performing drama that they’ve had on their service. I’m like, “Your service isn’t that old, Jamie, but we’ll take it.” Then, of course, whenever I mention that again, he says, “Well, you know, Hijack did really well, too.” It’s like, “Oh, thanks, Jamie, so now you take that away.” But hey, Hijack is great, so it’s fun to be part of a service where these things are doing well.

The other thing is just seeing it enter the zeitgeist a little bit, seeing it become a joke, a meme. It’s like, “Oh, people are paying attention.” And then it’s anecdotal, and people finding out that I’m involved with it. As I say, the best review we’ve gotten on this show is people saying, “I can’t wait for Season 2.

The Secret to ‘Silo’s Storyline Success

One of the reasons I think your show is so good is because of the source material, but also because I read that you had all 10 scripts done when you started filming the first season. Is that correct?

YOST: Yes.

Why don’t more shows create all the scripts? Because it’s clear that it leads to better episodes, better material, when you’re not writing as you’re filming.

YOST: We are thankfully in that position, not out of any grand calculation, but simply because we have to repurpose sets. So the cafeteria turns into the IT bullpen, turns into the marketplace turns into…you know. So, everything has to be roughly cross-boarded, which means you have to have all scripts. And because that takes planning and pre-production, you have to have them well in advance, which means then we can go over them and say, “Hey, did we set this up right? Are we paying this off? Have we mentioned that damn heat tape too much, or not enough?” So, we can calibrate those things. And then more important stuff — “What about this character? Have we paid this off? Will we set this up? What about a rewrite on this scene? What about adding a scene?” So, it really is a luxury.

How Holston’s Fate in ‘Silo’ Season 1, Episode 1 Changed in the Edit
Image via Apple TV+

I talk about editing with everyone because it’s where it all comes together. So, how did the show change in the editing room in ways you didn’t expect going in?

YOST: A big thing was stuff that Morten [Tyldum] and I did, and a lot of it was driven by Morten in the first three episodes. The script for the pilot, for the first episode, “Freedom Day” as it’s called, actually went all the way through Holston going out to clean and dying. And he said, “What if we held off on that? What if we made that the teaser of the second episode, him dying? Let’s end the first episode with him saying, ‘I just wanna know the truth.’” It’s a little bit of a cliffhanger. He’s still alive. We haven’t killed off both of them yet. And so, that was a smart thing.

Also, there was a different structure in terms of how things were playing out in the second episode versus what was happening in the third. We mixed and matched, and we sort of changed those episodes a fair amount in the editing process, just moving stuff from the third episode into the second and from the second into the third. Luckily, the material could support that, and it allowed for a better progression of story. So, that was a lot of stuff done in editing. After that, once the show got going, we kind of knew the episodes stood as they stood, and worked as they were.

Did you end up with a lot of deleted scenes or no?

YOST: I don’t believe so. There were a few in the first episode because we needed to keep it going. There was a lovely little scene between Holston, the sheriff, David Oyelowo, Marnes, his chief deputy, Will Patton. They’re just sitting there and they’re talking about Holston’s life and stuff with Allison. There’s some nice jokes between them that really shows their bond, and we just ultimately didn’t have time for it. If it was a movie, sure, but for an hour of television we don’t want to go much over the hour, so let’s cut it out.

Is that the kind of stuff that you would ever release, or is it never gonna see the light of day?

YOST: I don’t know. It’s interesting. We hadn’t thought about it. I don’t feel that the episode definitely has to have it in there. It’s like the great thing that Peter Jackson did, which is there’s the extended edition, but he doesn’t call them “director’s cuts.” What was released to the world the first go-round, those were his director’s cuts. But there is this extra stuff, because people go bananas over that. I’ve watched all the extended editions many times, and all the documentaries on the DVDs of Lord of the Rings, but I still love what he originally released in the theaters. And I think we stand behind what we released to the world.

I think that The Lord of the Rings, the extended editions, are far superior.

YOST: You know what? I’m a LOTR nut, as we, people who read that thing five times in our teens, would call it, but I agree and I don’t. I mean, I also think that the stuff that went into the theaters just worked really, really well. But of course, I also wanna see the Osgiliath scenes, and I wanna see the extended-this, the extended-that. Some stuff feels shortened in the released cuts, but we’ve got the extended editions, and now they’ve become sort of the standard. So that’s what’s on the Max streamer, is the extended editions. I don’t even know if they have the original editions up for screening.

I actually don’t know what editions are on there. But anyway.

YOST: We’re not here to talk about Lord of the Rings, even though I can do that all day.

Sir, I can do the same thing.

‘Silo’ Was Almost an AMC Original
“Apple can afford to do the show the way it should be done.”
Image via Apple TV+

Making the first season of any show, you’re learning how to make the show. How long does it take to shoot? What can you do? What were some of the big lessons you learned making the first season of Silo that you took away from it and have applied?

YOST: A lot of it is just the practicalities of production. You would think that everything that’s a stage-based show should move faster than it actually does. It takes time to light these sets and make sure they look as good as they can look, and so there are no real time-savings in that. It’s the modern math of streaming and the ability to spend money and the appetite to spend money to get them to look as good as they do. When I watch 3 Body Problem, or I watch this, or Fallout, you can start going, “Oh, I know what their budget was. I know how many days they’re shooting that episode, and where they’re spending it, where they’re cutting, where they’re just streamlining the story…” And that’s just part of where we are in this streaming world. We have twice the amount of time for an episode of Silo than we had for Justified, roughly, and a substantially larger budget. Time has passed, and budgets go up anyway, but that’s the appetite. That’s one reason why Apple did Silo and not AMC, who actually had optioned it, is because Jamie convinced them that we should all work together because Apple can afford to do the show the way it should be done. AMC said, “You know what? You’re right. Let’s do this together.” So, here we are.

I put on a lot of screenings and we do a lot of television screenings for the bigger shows, and they look incredible on a movie screen. Silo is an example where I would love to show episodes on a movie screen because it’s gonna look amazing.

YOST: I got to watch one last night with a group of people from the Academy, and it looked fantastic. It held up really well.

‘Silo’ Season 1’s Big Reveal Was Almost Something Else Entirely
Image via Apple TV+

I definitely have to talk about the finale of Season 1 because it’s awesome. Was it always this finale? How did you guys figure it out? Was it ever going to be something else?

YOST: I don’t think it was ever going to be something else. There were versions, like, “Do we just have it end with her going out the door?” And it was like, “No, no. We need to expand the world.” Those were the big questions. And, “When did we reveal that it really is awful outside?” There had been a version where that got revealed — and it was filmed — with Holston when he takes off his helmet, because he sees the reality. And we thought, “No, let’s hold it.” That was a note from Apple: “Let’s hold it to the end of the season.” And so, that’s the way we went. The whole thing was, does the big shot communicate that there are other silos out there? And it does. But you worry. You worry until people call, and say, “Oh my god! That was so mind-blowing.” And it’s like, “Fantastic. That’s what I wanna hear.”

With that shot with the other silos, how much did you debate the distance between each silo in that shot? Were you guys talking about that?

YOST: Yeah, we talked about it. Daniel Rauchwerger, who does our VFX with Jen Wessner, we talked about that a lot. It’s also, then, the effects house. They have their ideas, “What about this, and what about that?” It was really, “Oh, not so far apart. A little farther apart.” It was all of that kind of math, that rough storyteller math. It needs to be far enough apart that certain things are believable and not so far apart that we can’t read it on the screen.

You can watch Silo Season 1 exclusively on Apple TV+.

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