Catalina Sandino Moreno (Credit: Troy Jensen/Courtesy of actress)
Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno is trying horror again, a genre she has explored only a few times in her career.
The Colombian-born artist stars in the current Epix television series From, about a mysterious town that traps everyone who arrives, in the middle of a large forest and with terrifying creatures that come out at night.
“This show can be very scary,” Moreno says. For starters, once newcomers set foot in the town, there is seemingly no road that can lead them out of the nightmare they just entered. That is exactly what Moreno’s character discovered one day when she and her family arrived in their recreational vehicle and asked for directions to a highway whose sign they may have missed. After getting directions from a resident, the family tries to leave but soon find themselves back in the town, over and over again. Nighttime bring only more surprises and terror.
“It is meant to be very scary,” chimes in show’s creator and writer John Griffin, a budding filmmaker whose only other credit on the website IMDb is writer of one episode for the TV horror series The Twilight Zone. “The show really began with the idea of what it would be like if the reality that you knew were taken away and your day-to-day reality literally became a nightmare.”
Interjects Moreno, “And there are monsters in those nightmares.” She plays Tabitha Matthews, a wife and the mother of a young boy and teen daughter. “My husband, my son and I have moved into a town in middle America that traps everyone who enters. We are plagued by the threats, including terrifying nocturnal creatures.”
Cast as Tabitha’s family are Eion Bailey (Once Upon a Time) as husband Jim, Simon Webster (Lucas the Spider) as son Ethan and Hannah Cheramy (Van Helsing, series) as daughter Julie. Other cast members include Harold Perrineau, Shaun Majumder, Avery Konrad, Ricky He, Elizabeth Saunders and Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks.
A native of Bogotá, Moreno was studying acting at the Colombian capital’s Pontificia Universidad Javeriana when she was plucked out to play the lead in Maria Full of Grace (Maria: Llena de Gracia ) in 2004. In the U.S.-Colombian co-production, Moreno is Maria Álvarez, a pregnant Colombian teenager who becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family. That first role launched Moreno’s international career, receiving an Academy Awards nomination for her performance and earning her the Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival 2004, an honor she shared in a tie with Charlize Theron for Monster.
Her acclaimed debut performance led her to move to New York to continue studying acting and soon joined other international and Hollywood movies like France’s Paris, Je T’Aime, Fast Food Nation and Love in the Time of Cholera, co-starring with actors like Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt and Benicio Del Toro. She also has appeared in the TV series The Bridge, American Gothic and East Los High.
To dramas, thrillers and comedies, she also added horror projects like the TV movie Incarnate and the indie films Pure Magic and At the Devil’s Door.
The new Epix series brings Moreno back to the scary genre.
“In From, I think my first meeting of ‘the creatures’ is in episode three, we’re moving into our house,” she says. “And they’re not that scary, at first. I mean like they’re just normal people walking towards you, but then you learn what they can do.” In those encounters, death is a strong possibility.
The horror sometimes felt real in the set, according to the director. “I’ll add one more thing about the monsters,” says Bailey, the show’s creator. He recalled the filming of a dream sequence in which a creature frightened Simon, the child actor playing the son. “And if we ever had a chance to see how sufficiently frightening these creatures are, we saw it by how Simon responded,” stated the filmmaker. “One of the cast members, very thankfully, recognized that Simon was definitely afraid. We had to comfort him and put an arm around him and tell him, ‘It’s going to be okay.’”
Echoing the director’s concerns, Moreno also considered the need to address the impact of horror scenes on the cast members, especially children. “I remember me asking, ‘Can we just talk about this scene?’,” recalls the actress, adding that throughout the shooting of the episodes the collaboration with the cast and crew felt great. Her personal experience and Latino culture also helped Moreno with the role of Tabitha. “I think it’s helpful to just imprint some of (myself) into my character,” explains the Colombian thespian. “I think we all did that. I hope so. As a Latinx mother of a 13-year-old, I think we do things differently from other cultures.” She concludes, “I think it was interesting to bring myself into this woman I was playing. I really enjoyed doing that.”
The From crew features other filmmakers who have worked in major Hollywood productions, including an award-winning Puerto Rican.
Joining Bailey as a writer is Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a Boricua whose writing and producing credits include the series Lost and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, both of which earned him Primetime Emmys for production.
The series is executive produced by Josh Appelbaum (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Jack Bender (Lost), Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame) and Jeff Pinkner (Fringe). Tom Luse (The Walking Dead) is a consulting producer.
From premiered Feb. 20 and airs Sundays. For international audiences, the show streams on Netflix.
