Josh Holloway and Sarah Wayne Callies ‘Colony’ Interview

Josh Holloway and Sarah Wayne Callies Colony Interview
Josh Holloway and Sarah Wayne Callies at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con (Photos by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)

USA Network’s Colony will make its debut this October with Lost‘s Josh Holloway and The Walking Dead‘s Sarah Wayne Callies in starring roles. The sci-fi action drama takes place in the near future in Los Angeles after an invasion. Callies and Holloway play a married couple whose middle son went missing during the invasion and who will stop at nothing to try and get him back.

Paired up for interviews at the San Diego Comic-Con, Holloway said it was the storytelling that attracted him to Colony and made him want to be involved in another series.

“Ultimately, that’s what I look for as an artist is does it move me? Is it an involuntary choice? And that’s basically, I’m compelled to do something that moves me so much. I read the script and right away I was like, ‘Wow, okay. This is storytelling.’ I love the patience that they have of unfolding in a world where everything is in your face, instant, all the time. To have a story that’s paced and it unfolds is refreshing.”

“I thought it was a really courageous story to be telling,” explained Callies. “I think some of the best science fiction creates this whole exterior world in which we can examine our own culture. One of my favorite seasons of television was the first season of Battlestar Galactica. It was this treatise on the Patriot Act. It was absolutely brilliant. I think one of the questions that we’re asking in Colony is what’s the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? And, at what point have you compromised so many of your ethics in service of your values that those values are worthless when you get there? There are quite literally no good guys and no bad guys in this world and I think that’s a level of moral complexity that I believe.

I think that’s honest, and I think to be looking at questions of what constitutes terrorism, what generates terrorism, what is it like to be an occupied United States, those are really interesting questions. Carlton [Cuse] and Ryan [Condal] are viciously smart, and so they’re not raising them in the pilot because they think they’re buzzwords and then they go away and we just run around with guns. They’re using this as an opportunity to ask complicated questions with more than one answer.”

“Yes, from varied perspectives,” added Holloway. “What would you do for your loved one? How far would you go? Who comes first?”

“Who comes first? That’s a good question,” said Callies.


Colony Season One Cast Photo
Alex Neustaedter, Isabella Crovetti-Cramp, Sarah Wayne Callies, and Josh Holloway in ‘Colony’ (Photo by Paul Drinkwater / USA Network)

Their answers led me to ask if the married couple they’re playing in the series will be on the same page in answering those questions. “No,” replied Callies, immediately and emphatically. “No,” responded Holloway, adding, “But what’s wonderful about this relationship is this is a couple who found true love. They’ve been together a long time. They’ve experienced this long-term relationship, marriage, children, the loss of a child. They’re damaged, they’re complex, and yet they’re fighting for their union because it’s true love. That’s weirdly sexy in a great way.”

“I think there’s another question, which is at what point does a divergent ideology in a marriage become an infidelity. Do you know what I mean? These are two people who believe very different things and are taking different courses of action,” explained Callies. “I haven’t read to the end of the season yet and we certainly haven’t shot it, but I think it’s possible that by the time they get to the end of that first season it’s going to be far worse than an affair. That kind of a dissidence in their philosophical approach.”

But Holloway’s not too sure about that. “I don’t know because their core love keeps bringing that back. At core, they’re together. They may have different ideas and different feeling about it, but they’re together. So, it’s tough. Tension’s great.”

Not knowing what’s coming up for his character is something Holloway’s used to after spending six seasons on Lost. “I prefer it that way,” revealed Holloway. “Just give me what’s going on now.”

“That’s life,” said Callies.

The Plot: Colony centers on one family’s struggle to survive and bring liberty back to the people of an occupied Los Angeles.  SAG winner Josh Holloway stars as former FBI agent Will Bowman and Satellite Award winner Sarah Wayne Callies stars as his wife, Katie, in the series which takes place in a dangerous world of divided ideologies.  While some choose to collaborate with the occupation and benefit from the new order, others rebel and suffer the consequences.

After being separated from their middle son during the invasion, Will and Katie are willing to do whatever is necessary to be reunited with him.  Thus, when the powerful Proxy Snyder (Peter Jacobson, “House”) offers Will a chance to get his son back if he will collaborate with the occupational government, Will and Katie find themselves faced with the toughest decision of their lives.  They will have to go beyond whatever they thought possible, risking their lives and their relationship to protect their family. 

Executive producers Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condal also discuss the series, the inspiration, the invasion, and why Colony is set in Los Angeles: