050 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
It’s common to see TV shows based on books,
comics or plays, but a TV show based on
paintings is quite the original proposition.
We speak to Tales From The Loop showrunner
Nathaniel Halpern about adapting Simon
Stålenhag’s sci-fi paintings for the small screen
WORDS ABIGAIL CHANDLERYou might not recognise his name, but you’d probably recognise Simon Stålenhag’s work. The Swedish artist is known
for his lyrical paintings, in which bold splashes of sci-fi sit innocuously within familiar landscapes, both Scandinavian
and American. Through his art books, he developed his paintings into a shared universe, one in which a mysterious
research facility is responsible for the impossible tech that’s fi nding its way into the real world.
Now, former Legion writer and co-executive producer Nathaniel Halpern has turned Stålenhag’s work into a TV
show. Halpern was brought on board by executive producer Matt Reeves (currently busy directing The Batman), and
he tells us that he was “captivated” by Stålenhag’s paintings instantly. “[T]here was a feeling to the imagery that I just
really responded to and a tone that leapt up out of the image,” he explains. “That was a tone I was very comfortable
with and felt like I would want to create a world within... [I really liked] the juxtaposition that he has in his work of
the extraordinary mixed with the ordinary, and how the sci-fi elements are almost mundane because the people don’t
seem overly concerned with them. I hadn’t seen that combination before, so I liked the reality of that world.”
The series centres on the small US town of Mercer, which sits on top of underground research facility The Mercer
Centre For Experimental Physics, where many of the townspeople work. It’s known locally as ‘the Loop’. “It’s a facility
where there are experiments with fringe physics and the by-products of those experiments are in the landscape
above,” Halpern tells us. “Usually with these kinds of stories it’s always that big question of ‘how is this happening?’050 | W W W. S C I FI N OW.CO.U K
It’s common to see TV shows based on books,
comics or plays, but a TV show based on
paintings is quite the original proposition.
We speak to Tales From The Loop showrunner
Nathaniel Halpern about adapting Simon
Stålenhag’s sci-fi paintings for the small screen
WORDS ABIGAIL CHANDLERYou might not recognise his name, but you’d probably recognise Simon Stålenhag’s work. The Swedish artist is known
for his lyrical paintings, in which bold splashes of sci-fi sit innocuously within familiar landscapes, both Scandinavian
and American. Through his art books, he developed his paintings into a shared universe, one in which a mysterious
research facility is responsible for the impossible tech that’s fi nding its way into the real world.
Now, former Legion writer and co-executive producer Nathaniel Halpern has turned Stålenhag’s work into a TV
show. Halpern was brought on board by executive producer Matt Reeves (currently busy directing The Batman), and
he tells us that he was “captivated” by Stålenhag’s paintings instantly. “[T]here was a feeling to the imagery that I just
really responded to and a tone that leapt up out of the image,” he explains. “That was a tone I was very comfortable
with and felt like I would want to create a world within... [I really liked] the juxtaposition that he has in his work of
the extraordinary mixed with the ordinary, and how the sci-fi elements are almost mundane because the people don’t
seem overly concerned with them. I hadn’t seen that combination before, so I liked the reality of that world.”
The series centres on the small US town of Mercer, which sits on top of underground research facility The Mercer
Centre For Experimental Physics, where many of the townspeople work. It’s known locally as ‘the Loop’. “It’s a facility
where there are experiments with fringe physics and the by-products of those experiments are in the landscape
above,” Halpern tells us. “Usually with these kinds of stories it’s always that big question of ‘how is this happening?’