Chuck Hogan – The Strain – Comic Con 2014

Interview By: Lynsey Tamborello

Q) How satisfied are you that your vision is actually being realized on TV?

A) We have had very few restrictions. FX has been pushing us to include more exciting aspects. They want stranger, weirder, scarier stuff. It’s really a great partnership.

Q) We know “The Strain” is based on a trilogy of books that you and Guillermo del Toro co-wrote. What inspired you to create such a monstrous vampire?

A) I’m sure it’s no surprise that when he said “vampire,” I wasn’t thinking Bela Lugosi. He wanted to go way back to the earliest incarnation of the myth, which has existed across all sorts of cultures. And we wanted to figure out what were the common denominators, what would make something like that really scary in these very modern times – taking this ancient curse and dropping it into modern day New York. That’s a story that I would actually read, watch and one I wanted to write.

Q) How did you get interested in this genre of horror?

A) I was a huge horror fan, especially in my teenage years. Back then, there were a lot of Italian horror movies – some zombie and some just really strange movies that made no sense. I was really into shock and gore. It was really fun to incorporate that and, at the same time, do more mythological stuff and really tell a whole bunch of different stories and not just go for the splatter. It’s not just about the splatter, though I love the splatter.

Q) Can you talk about your writing process with Guillermo?

A) We met and had a long breakfast. He already had a twelve page outline, which I loved. He had much more there and I was really excited about it. I suggested a few things, but nothing big. Over the next year, we spent some time going back and forth, refining it and figuring out if it was going to work. And then we took it to the publishers and they were very excited that we finished it. This was my first collaboration with anybody. I had never worked with anybody else and it was just great. It was fantastic and it continues to be fantastic.