Paul Wesley is best known for playing Stefan on the long-running CW hit The Vampire Diaries, but the actor is taking on a very different role in the upcoming drama Tell Me a Story.
Wesley is partnering with Vampire Diaries screenwriter and producer Kevin Williamson on the new project, which takes famous fairytales and brings them into modern-day New York City.
Speaking to fans at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Williamson explained that he is now subverting fairytales in the same way that he subverted the horror genre with Scream, and the result feels like a psychological thriller with themes that are borrowed from the classic tales.
“We take three fairytales a season,” Williamson explained, “and this year it’s Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, and Hansel and Gretel.”
“We intertwine them in a serialized drama in a very modern context,” he continued, adding that Manhattan serves as “the woods” that are often found in these tales. “It all takes place in New York City and it’s just very grounded in reality. You have to look to find the fairytale.”
Wesley will be playing one of the three little pigs in the upcoming series and said the role is nothing like what fans have seen him do in the past.
“I play a guy named Eddie and just the first thing I’ll say is he’s the exact opposite of the character people are used to seeing me play, which is Stefan from The Vampire Diaries,” Wesley revealed at the convention. “He’s dead. Spoiler alert!”
“But Eddie is this down-on-his-luck sort of guy who’s been dealt a bad hand and unfortunately has substance abuse issues and gets put in a situation where something quite tragic happens,” he continued. “I’m just thrilled that Kevin came to me with this because it’s such an opportunity for me to do something different. Something I haven’t done in years.”
Despite the classic fairytales being weaved into the plot, the show doesn’t have an actual element of fantasy. The men revealed that the inclusion of the tales is more subtle when compared to shows like Grimm or Once Upon a Time, and that the cast is playing actual human beings as opposed to the actual fairytale characters.
“When you hear the word ‘fairytale’ you think, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be supernatural,'” Wesley said. “This show’s not supernatural. In fact, there’s nothing supernatural about this show.”
The 36-year-old explained that the series is instead recontextualizing the stories in a modern day setting featuring “real humans and real issues.”
“For example, three bank robbers in the story wear pig masks. They’re the three little pigs,” said Wesley. “The bank robbery changes their lives forever, and that is the catalyst for that story. So there’s actually no fairytale. What we do is we subvert it and we hint at it.”
The actor told FANDOM that while he tried to humanize the role of Stefan as much as possible, he was still a superhuman character. But in Tell Me A Story, things get a little more raw and gritty than they did on The Vampire Diaries.
“It’s a little uglier … it’s more real,” he said. “Vampires don’t exist. Sorry, guys, hate to spoil it for you. These people are real people.”
We’ll find out just how many fairytales tropes we recognize when Tell Me A Story premieres later this year on CBS All Access.
