A beast rises in the midst of a wildfire in Paramount+'s 'Wolf Pack'
A Los Angeles wildfire awakens a supernatural creature and drives it to attack motorists snarled in traffic beneath the burning hills in a thriller series coming to Paramount+.
"Wolf Pack," premiering Thursday, Jan. 26, follows a boy and a girl whose lives are changed forever by the beast's rise amid the flames. Injured in the tumult, the pair are inexplicably drawn to two other teens who were adopted 16 years earlier by a park ranger following another mysterious wildfire. And with a full moon on the horizon, they all come to realize what their connection is - the bite and blood of a werewolf.
Based on the series of novels by Edo Van Belkom, the series stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rodrigo Santoro, Armani Jackson, Bella Shepard, Chloe Rose Robertson, Tyler Lawrence Gray and Lanny Joon.
For Santoro, a Brazilian actor whose credits range from movies such as "Love Actually" and "Ben Hur" to the TV dramas "Westworld" and "Reprisal," the role of park ranger Garrett Briggs represented a welcome chance to step into new territory and stretch his acting muscles in a horror role.
"I tend to make choices that truly take me out of my comfort zone, and I've never experienced anything like that; I've never been in a supernatural kind of show ...," he explains. "(So) I didn't approach it as, 'Oh, it's a supernatural thriller so I'm gonna play it supernatural.' It's basically a father that has two kids that truly need to be taken care of in a very special way just because ... they truly have special needs. So it appealed to me as something absolutely new from my previous experience."
To prepare for the role, Santoro spoke to park rangers around the country to get an idea of their duties ("It's from A to Z," he says) and leaned on co-star and executive producer Gellar for pointers on working in the horror genre.
As for his character, the actor describes Garrett as an "average Joe" who loves and is protective of his kids and nature, both of which are threatened by the extraordinary situation into which they've all been placed. But he's also conflicted, though why that is the actor couldn't elaborate, lest he reveal spoilers.
"Garrett is a character that is constantly in conflict with the responsibility of paternity, of being a parent and how to raise these kids and morality ...," he says. "He is in a moral crisis. But I love that about the character. The moral crisis is something that is such an interesting layer to play because he's working, he's serving his community, but he's in conflict with what he has to do. And he'll do anything to protect his kids from outsiders (and) especially from themselves."