Alexander Ludwig has been through some pretty tough shoots in his acting career, including five seasons of Vikings. But no shoot has been as tough on him emotionally as Earth Abides, where he plays a man who believes he might be the only survivor of a pandemic.
“That first episode it was just me, every day, 16-hour days, door to door, four hours of sleep, and then doing it again, for a month,” he tells TV WEEK. “It took a toll in ways I didn’t expect – like, I was really, truly grateful when I finally had even a dog to work with.
“I talked to Will Smith about this, because I felt he was the only person who could possibly understand what it was like, having shot I Am Legend [the 2007 post-apocalyptic thriller film].
It’s a very, very weird experience.”
In the six-part Stan drama, based on the 1949 sci-fi novel Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, Alexander stars as Ish, a geologist who, after being bitten by a rattlesnake, drifts in and out of consciousness for weeks. When he recovers, he returns home to find silent streets and dead bodies. He drives to Las Vegas, and again, finds no-one alive. So he gets naked.
“I actually loved that, because I was like, ‘That’s exactly what I would do,’” Alexander, 32, says with a laugh. “You’re just like, ‘Well, nobody’s here, so screw it – I’m just going to take off my clothes and go for a dip in the hot tub.’
“Am I used to those scenes? I’d be willing to put money on the fact that I’m in the top 0.1 per cent of people who have done the most amount of nudity in my business at this point!”
Ish leaves Las Vegas and moves into his parents’ home with a stray dog he’s adopted. But then, after many solitary months, he sees smoke coming from a nearby chimney.
“For Ish, the smoke is a lifeline,” Alexander says.
The fire has been lit by a woman called Emma (Jessica Frances Dukes). She’s the polar opposite of Ish, yet they become lovers. Emma falls pregnant, but the birth doesn’t go to plan and a panicky Ish doesn’t know how to help.
Alexander, who played Cato in The Hunger Games, says as he was filming this storyline, he was living out something similar, with his wife Lauren being “very pregnant” with the couple’s first son, Townes.
“Lauren had to go back to Austin, Texas, where we live, to give birth and there was a very real chance I wasn’t going to be there,” Alexander explains. “He came two weeks early. And I was experiencing this firsthand, just not being able to be there for my wife. Ish, in this moment, feels that same way.”
For Alexander, Earth Abides is ultimately a “very hopeful” show.
“It’s about the importance of connection and community. Without that, what are we? And at a time when sometimes our world feels a little divided, this is the perfect time for
a show like this to exist.”
Earth Abides S1 is available on Stan from December 2
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
