TimeOut Abu Dhabi – July 26, 2018

timeoutdubai.com July 25 – August 7 2018 27

STORMY

SCENES

Emma Pearson chats to the cast of Netpix’s

gripping post-apocalyptic series, The Rain

Y

ou might feel like post-apocalyptic TV

has been done to the death, until down

beats the mind-blowing new thriller

that is The Rain and washes all those

doubts away.

Let us set the scene. Six years after a brutal

virus carried by the rain wipes out almost

all humans, you and your sibling emerge

from a safety bunker and Ànd all remnants

of civilisation gone. You don’t know what’s

happened to your family, your friends, or

indeed the world as you know it.

This is the story of Simone (Alba August)

and her sulky younger brother Rasmus (Lucas

Lynggaard Tønnesen) who join a group of

young survivors and together set out on a

journey riddled with danger as they search for

any sign of life.

They’ll soon come to Ànd, however, that

not all survivors have good intentions and

rogue wanderers deranged with hunger can

descend like a pack of wolves at the sniff of

a Ritz cracker.

It’s eerie, it’s thrilling, and feels a bit

like The Walking Dead meets Jarhead as

the group go military in their quest to Ànd

(non-feral) civilisation, all while avoiding that

pesky virus-infused rain. And with all ties to

their former lives obliterated, it’s not long

before boundaries are broken as the group

experiment with the new-found freedom to

reinvent themselves.

In their frantic struggle for survival, they

discover that even in a post-apocalyptic world

there’s still love, jealousy and many of the

dilemmas that make being young and angsty

so brilliant (for us watching, anyway).

The Rain is the Àrst Danish original

series for NetÁix, set in Scandinavia and

dubbed expertly into English. The Áow is

seamless and the acting from this young

cast is phenomenal.

Created by Jannik Tai Mosholt, Christian

Potalivo and Esben Toft Lacobsen, the series

was shot on location in studios in Denmark

and Sweden. The eight 40-minute episodes

are available to watch on NetÁix now and we

guarantee you’ll be in for a binge-fest.

August, who is 25, and Tønnesen, who is

just 17, shot the series over the course of six

months and became like “real-life brother and

sister” during Àlming.

“To be shooting for six months, that’s very

hard to keep your focus and energy for that

long,” says August. “You get to a point after

a few months when you’re very tired. We

created a group with positive energy so we

helped each other when we felt like that.”

Tønnesen, meanwhile, had just left high

school when he started Àlming the series and

was thrilled to be part of the new movement

of young adult content.

“Newly starting off with a NetÁix series is

huge and six months is a lot of time to be

Àlming,” he explains. “It’s really been amazing

to be a part of it. I went from school to

shooting in a matter of months so it was weird

to suddenly be transported there, but it was

an exciting journey.

“I grew up with 13 Reasons Why and

Stranger Things, so being part of the NetÁix

family is amazing and to have a series in your

home country is really incredible.”

Like 13 Reasons Why, and other shows

of the same ilk, The Rain addresses a lot of

issues faced by teenagers and young adults.

“It’s very important for young people and

teenagers to have something [or someone]

to identify with and I think that The Rain has

that,” says August.

Creator Christian Potalivo agrees. “Many

countries don’t have the ability to do young

adult stuff because it’s so niche. Doing

a show like this that goes out worldwide

connects the themes that all young adults

have trouble with. We all know the feeling of

Àrst love, the Àrst jealousy... All of these things

are very cross-cultural.”

The Rain is now available to watch in 190

countries on NetÁix, but the creators felt it

imperative to stay true to their Danish roots.

“I think it was very important for us to hold

to what we know and what we come from,”

explains Potalivo. “We come from a country in

a part of the world where we have a lot of rain,

but also a very well-structured society and

we’re in many ways fortunate. It’s interesting

to tell a story about coming from that part of

the world and what that does to you when that

ground rule of security is changed.”

Fellow creator Jannik Tai Mosholt feels that

the timing of The Rain could not be more

relevant to a modern audience. “It seems

that we are in times of growing fear for what

sometimes seems like no apparent reason.

“We have a group of young adults where

we just said ‘well let’s take everything away

from them and see how they react and how

they become human and if it’s possible to be

human in a world where there’s no humanity

left’. It seems to us to be very relevant in the

times that we’re in.”

And despite our earlier doubts about the

longevity of post-apocalyptic TV, Mosholt feels

it’s got legs yet – as long as the audience

remains empathetic to the character’s

situation and concerned for their fate.

Remember show favourite Glenn’s grizzly end

in The Walking Dead? There might still be

hope yet.

“I think the post-apocalyptic genre or setting

for us is just like a big sand box that you can

play around in. It will always come down to

exciting stories with relatable characters.”

The Rain is streaming now on NetÁix.

We all know the

feeling of first love,

first jealousy

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