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NEW YORK, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Heels and Vikings alum Alexander Ludwig says he wanted to star in Earth Abides because the limited series is a realistic look at what could happen after a cataclysmic pandemic. Premiering Sunday on MGM+, the adaptation of George Stewart's classic novel follows Ish (Ludwig), a geologist and one of the few survivors of a global disaster, who, after several years alone, finds a mate in the resourceful Emma (Jessica Frances Dukes).
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"You hear 'post-apocalyptic' and you think zombies and monsters, right? And to me, this is the most true of what would actually happen in a post-apocalyptic scenario," Ludwig, 32, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
"It's about finding purpose and meaning and it's about people. The monsters lie within and it's about humanity and what really matters at the end of the day when everything else is stripped away," he said. "Those are the kind of themes that we get to deal with. I love the idea of what happens if we become a primitive species again. How do we rebuild and can we get it right?"
Ludwig said he thinks viewers who experienced the recent coronavirus pandemic and its associated lockdowns will connect to what the characters on his new show are going through.
"Most of us have asked ourselves a version of that question, 'What would happen if it got worse? What would we do?'" he said.
"Really great pieces of [artistic] work make us turn to our friend or our partner, or anybody we're sitting with and viewing it with and ask these questions," Ludwig added.
"'What would you do in that scenario and what would I do?' And you might not agree with everything the characters do. But you'll certainly understand why they do it," he said. "Nobody's right, nobody's wrong, but we've got to figure out how we're doing this together."
Ozark and The Gilded Age actress Dukes, 34, said she fell in love with this series the minute she read the script for the first episode.
"The way that Todd Komarnicki writes is so poetic. It's so beautiful. The imagery was so clear in my mind," Dukes said.
"And then after being through a [real] pandemic and, also, just sort of experiencing solitude in a way, you really do imagine yourself in the world and it just came to life in a way," she added. "So, I actually said 'yes' before I read the second episode. I was like, 'I'm in!' Anybody who writes like this, I want to work with them."
Ludwig's Ish survives the pandemic because he was living in a remote location, studying rocks, at the time the disease starts ravaging more highly populated areas.
A near-fatal rattlesnake bite further delays his realization that everyone he knows and loves is dead.
Ludwig described his character as a "solitary man."
"Being alone is great when it's a choice, but when it's forced upon you, you very quickly realize that the only way to survive is with others," he said.
"He prays that he can find that purpose within himself, but that's what I love so much about him," the actor added.
"As much as the the show goes on this massive journey, Ish, himself, is going through this huge journey from this stubborn, bull-headed man who's trying to control everything and everyone to someone who is is able to surrender and to accept and, through that, I think [Ish and Emma] build something very beautiful."
Dukes agreed that the characters complement each other.
"I truly believe that these two were chosen to go on this journey together, because there's something about Emma," the actress said, referring to how she stands up to Ish and he can't control her.
"It's so wonderful the way it's written, that this woman is put in his life to make him see himself and, through him, she sees herself."
The series shows the couple living, not just surviving, and, to do this, they make the conscious decisions to move forward and be happy, despite whatever personal traumas they have faced.
"It was pretty surreal because a lot of my life was paralleling what was actually happening in the show at the same time," Ludwig said.
"Without giving too much away, when something happened to my son in the show, my son was being born on the same day," he recalled. "In terms of tapping into that, I had this well that I could dive into. ... I was very, very grateful for that. I fully got to experience both, you know, life and the show simultaneously, through Ish's eyes."
The show struck a personal chord for Dukes, as well.
"It's just one of those stories that you have to look inside yourself and see the flaws or see the beauty, see all the power, see the survival, and these characters sort of make you face yourself," she said.
"An audience comes to a show or watches the show to see themselves and I think they're going to see themselves in every single character and, hopefully, learn about themselves."
The cast also includes Aaron Tveit, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, Elyse Levesque and Luisa D'Oliveira.
