The Big Picture

Scott Speedman, Chaske Spencer and Ian McCulloch visit the Collider interview studio at San Diego Comic-Con to discuss their upcoming horror series, Teacup.
During their chat with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, they tease the complex dynamics between the characters and the evil they’re up against.
Teacup premieres on Peacock on October 10, just in time for Halloween.

Although there are still a few months before the Halloween season sinks in, Peacock is already teasing an upcoming horror series that will arrive on the platform in October. Created by Ian McCulloch, primarily known for his work on Yellowstone, the project is called Teacup, and it is loosely inspired by Robert McCammon’s novel Stinger. Set in a secluded farm region in Georgia, a deadly threat haunts a disparate community who toss aside their differences in order to protect themselves from the evil forces plaguing their town.

At San Diego Comic-Con 2024, a panel took place with the series’ lead actors, Yvonne Strahovski, Scott Speedman and Chaske Spencer in attendance. The trio was accompanied by McCulloch and executive producer James Wan. During the discussion, Teacup’s creative team not only released first-look images of the thrilling Peacock original, but also shared a teaser trailer.

Later on, Speedman, Spencer, and McCulloch sat down with Collider’s own Perri Nemiroff to talk more about the show’s production process. In the interview, the actors and showrunner discuss how the project sets itself apart from its gargantuan source material, what drew the cast members into saying “yes” to it, and the fun environment on set despite the series’ haunting subject. Speedman also chatted a little bit about how his experience working on Underworld helped him to get used to Matrix-like filmmaking.

Teacup Teacup is a horror-thriller TV show set to premiere on Peacock in October 2024. Produced by James Wan, the series is inspired by Robert McCammon’s 1988 novel “Stinger.” The story revolves around a group of neighbors in rural Georgia who must unite to confront a mysterious and deadly threat. As tensions rise and strange occurrences unfold, they struggle to survive against an unknown and terrifying force.Release Date October 10, 2024 Seasons 1 Creator(s) Ian McCulloch Expand

‘Teacup’ Turns the Novel, ‘Stinger,’ Into a Keyhole Epic
Image via Peacock

PERRI NEMIROFF: This is very early in the show’s promotional journey so, Ian, would you mind doing the honors and giving our viewers a brief description of the show?

IAN MCCULLOCH: Our show is about a family on a farm in rural Georgia. Their son goes missing, and he comes back somehow changed. At the same time, this family and a group of their neighbors find that they’re mysteriously trapped on this farm. Tensions arise between the various family members and neighbors, secrets are revealed, and there are betrayals, but they have to look beyond their differences and find a way to unite in the face of a mysterious and what turns out to be a very deadly threat.

There’s one specific thing you mentioned in our press notes that I wanted to ask about. You said that Atomic Monster let Teacup be the show that you believed in and wanted to make. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? What is your version of Stinger versus any other way it could have been adapted?

MCCULLOCH: Stinger, the book, is gargantuan. It’s an epic novel. It’s brash, it’s got big set pieces, lots of characters, an entire town under siege and my vision when they asked if I wanted to adapt it was to flip it on its head, take all of that away. I wish I’d come up with this turn of phrase, but I wanted to turn it into a keyhole epic, which means a very large story told through a very small lens. So that’s what I did. I took away most of the characters. I focused on the central family. I took away the town. I focused it on a secluded farm. I was saying before, we turn down the temperature. It’s a slow burn as opposed to a big explosion of the book.

Slow burn, but some pretty big things happen quite early on.

MCCULLOCH: It’s the fastest slow burn on TV.

SCOTT SPEEDMAN: The fastest slow burn you’ll ever see.

Scott Speedman Praises ‘Teacup’s Cinematic Scripts
Image via Peacock

Scott and Chaske, when this opportunity first came your way, what was it about Teacup that made you think, “This is the right project for me to take right now? I have something to gain from this?”

SPEEDMAN: For me, I’ve been wanting to work with [Ian McCulloch] for a long time. I’ve read a couple of scripts. We worked on a script that didn’t ever really happen, but it was a great experience, and I think he’s just an amazing writer. When I heard he was doing something in this space, I know him pretty well, and as a writer I know him pretty well, and I thought that was gonna be a really interesting mix of things. I knew that when you jumped into these scripts, there was gonna be a big character development. It wasn’t just gonna be, as you say, sort of the macro look at a story. It was gonna start where it did. I got three scripts and read them very quickly and immediately called him and tried to get the job, basically. I thought the world he created was unique, and I thought it was director-proof. It was really cinematic. I thought, “If we can get any of this or a lot of this on screen, we’re going to be in good shape here,” and I think we really did. Audiences are really gonna be excited by this.

CHASKE SPENCER: For me, it was when Ian and Evan [known as E.L. Katz] pitched me the character of Ruben and the challenges it would bring and what I could bring to the table. I love the writing, I love the story of it, and I love the conflict he has with James, as well. It was a great drama, and as an actor, you want to sign up for stuff like that. I was very grateful to play him.

I’m sure you had wonderful scripts to work with, but when you’re an actor playing a member of a family, I have to imagine that you find a lot of your character through your family scene partners on set. To highlight the wonderful people you get to work with, can you name something you discovered about your character through working with them?

SPEEDMAN: No. [Laughs] I mean, this is the way I work now. I used to work with a lot of acting coaches and would get really in my head about preparing and doing this and that. But when there’s a project like this, I kind of jump in. As we went into Episodes 5, 6, 7, and 8, it really did turn into a little bit of a summer camp feel. We’d be doing these really, really intense elements of the show that start to happen through six, seven, and eight episodes, and you’d be just diving in with these people and not even thinking about them as another actor. That’s how talented the rest of the cast is and how good of a job he did in casting. All those people really informed my own character, where you have to do less and less work and let the show do its own work if that makes any sense at all.

I think it totally makes sense!

You mentioned directors earlier, so I’ll go there next. You have four directors here who are all exceptional. Evan and Chloe [Okuno], in particular, I feel like they’re some of the most exciting rising voices in genre. Can you tell me a little bit about assembling the right group and figuring out who should direct each episode? Chloe and Evan feel like they might lean more horror, whereas Kevin [Tancharoen] and John [Hyams] lean a little more action.

SPEEDMAN: It’s a great question, and you don’t hear questions like that a lot. I think that’s great.

MCCULLOCH: Evan was on board from the beginning. Evan was on this project before I was, and it’s funny you say that because all four directors brought something different. There was never a crossover in terms of their style of work or the way they worked. They all brought something different, and oddly, things just kind of matched up that their specific skill sets worked very well for the two episodes that they directed. Evan creating this world, creating the mood, the tone; it was beautiful. Then Chloe took it to a place where the story changes gears, and you feel like, “Oh, now we’re in a very different kind of story,” and it just fits very well.

John Hyams has been doing this for years and is just a master. He just walks on, and things get done, and they’re beautiful. Kevin, who was along for the whole ride, is actually our producing director, so he was there throughout his last two episodes. They really do speak to what you’re talking about, which is this action. It’s not a large world, as I said, but there are some things that happen that you need someone who has a very shorthand at set pieces.

Yes, the Horseback Riding in ‘Teacup’ Is Real!
Image via Peacock

I’ll lean into the effects now. Scott and Chaske, is there anything you can tease from set that made you stop and go, “I cannot believe this is what it takes to make it look like that in the finished product?”

SPEEDMAN: With his scripts, I knew the character stuff was gonna be there. I knew all of that sort of Western feel was gonna be there, but I wasn’t sure how the genre elements were going to come together. Are they gonna be computer graphics? Are we gonna be looking at a tennis ball on a thing? But we rode up on a horse to something, and it was practical effects. It wasn’t something you were looking at, which was great, and they did such an amazing job with it. I was worried about how my horse was gonna react to what it was seeing, and they were fine. They pulled that off amazingly.

Chaske, does anything specific come to mind for you?

MCCULLOCH: Scott’s horseback riding. [Laughs]

SPENCER: Yes, Scott’s horseback riding.

SPEEDMAN: Anytime we had to ride a horse, we couldn’t believe we pulled that off.

Ian, I don’t know how much detail you’ll want to give on this, but when working with the special effects makeup team, are there any particular references you gave them?

MCCULLOCH: There are a lot of references. Without spoiling anything, we weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel, but at the same time, we wanted to have the supernatural elements of the show be something that audiences hadn’t seen before. I don’t know how other people do it, but the way to do that was to be very specific with references but then to trust the people to take those references and say, “Well, what’s your best idea? Because you’re gonna make my idea better.” We had some pretty abstract references from pieces of art to driftwood, to Bonsai trees. We had all sorts of things going into a very specific, practical effect that they built. It sounds like BS, but as with everything in Teacup, it exceeded my expectations on every single level.

As you were naming all those references, I was trying to connect the dots to certain things I’ve seen thus far, and I feel like I can!

MCCULLOCH: I think you can.

I want to ask the three of you my favorite question. I’ll warn you; nobody likes it. I find that nobody in this business tells themselves “good job” nearly enough. We give each other awards. Super cool. We should keep doing that. But I want to know something that you individually did while making Teacup that you can look back on and say, “I am so proud of what I was able to do there.”

SPEEDMAN: You’re right, that’s a tough question. I’ve been doing this for a long time now. For me, it was letting go into some of the more emotional parts of the show and not getting consumed with dictating or controlling what that was gonna be, and just letting the scene develop. Again, trusting Yvonne [Strahovski] or Emily [Bierre] or whoever you were working with in that moment to kind of let the writing do the work for you and try to dive in and see what’s happening on the day and let it go. I was able to do that, in some ways, more than I have in the past. I think it’s a credit to everybody around, the whole crew and everything. That was a big deal for me.

It’s a great example.

SPENCER: I think, for me, it would be trying to keep Ruben internal. That was quite challenging for me. It was the directors and the writing, but it was very hard trying to keep contained because it was a fun time on the set. It really was. And by nature, I’m not that contained, so it was quite challenging after a while.

I always feel like the most disturbing material is the most fun to make and also has the most loving, wonderful, warm people behind it.

SPEEDMAN: It’s weird. That’s been my experience too.

MCCULLOCH: This is my first time showrunning, and it’s the first show that I’ve created that’s been made. I would say that Teacup is what I’m most proud of. As I said before, and I’m not lying, every aspect of making this exceeded my expectations. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had, but it’s also the best job I’ve ever had. I surprised myself because I think I’m pretty good at it, which is shocking. [Laughs] I think we did a good job.

‘Underworld’ Was Speedman’s First Experience With ‘Matrix’-Like Filmmaking

I have to end with one other question. Scott, this is coming your way. Whenever we prepare for these Comic-Con interviews, we always tell our Collider colleagues who we’re talking to, and I ask them if they have any past or future projects they want us to ask about. Everyone just wants you to talk about Underworld, forever and ever and ever. I read the Vulture interview you did last year, so I know you’ve talked it to death. I tried to come up with a question that maybe you haven’t answered. Is there any particular tool in your acting toolkit that you gained from Underworld that you actually still use to this day?

SPEEDMAN: That was the first time in 2003 that we were all doing the Matrix kind of stuff, and there was a lot of wire work and all that kind of stuff, but it was my first time doing it. We were using a green screen back then, and I remember doing a scene in a car and it was a two-page dialogue scene, and the car wasn’t moving. There was all this stuff that was supposed to be happening. It was really challenging to figure that out, and I did not figure it out there, but it was the start of using your quote-unquote imagination, which I don’t have a lot of. That was the start of trying to figure out that kind of world, and, look around, we’ve leaned into that even more and more and more and more. So that’s the skill set I took away from that.

Makes sense. I’m glad that teed you up for success, and I’m glad that’s a hot topic that people still love to celebrate today!

SPEEDMAN: I don’t mind talking about it. I love it.

I appreciate that. I also appreciate you sharing your experience making Teacup with us. I’m so excited to see the back half. I can’t wait. Congratulations.

The first two episodes of Teacup will premiere on Peacock on October 10, 2024.