Matthew Rhys: ‘My new horror series made me jump – it felt so real’

Fancy a trip to a cursed New England town? If you’re a paid-up member of the Apple TV subscriber base, one now awaits.

Widow’s Bay brings with it an eye-popping level of talent. Showrunner Katie Dippold (co-writer on Parks and Recreation) has teamed up with director Hiro Murai, who stamped his vision on Atlanta and produced The Bear.

In front of the camera, the show stars Matthew Rhys as Widow’s Bay mayor Tom Loftis, alongside Barry’s Stephen Root and Everyone Else Burns’ Kate O’Flynn, who are part of a wacky assortment of townsfolk.

You probably wouldn’t associate this cast with the genuinely creepy horror this show holds. ‘Although there’s some horrific performances in our past,’ jokes Rhys to Metro.

The town is plagued by a poisonous fog, tales of bygone cannibalism and the ghost of a clown killer (‘I’m not a fan of the clowns,’ says Rhys), but the show defies a strictly scary categorisation. Widow’s Bay is also a tremendously funny watch, as they try to entice tourists to visit.

‘We all jumped at the scripts,’ recalls The Americans star. ‘It felt like a very real world. It was very detailed and intricate.

‘I had a few episodes towards the end, when reading them, I would make an involuntary noise. I sincerely hope the audience has the same reaction.’

What was the noise? Rhys does a mangled gasp, then adds: ‘But it was involuntary.’

At the show premiere, Root said he was approached again and again with comments about that unusual tonal blend. ‘It’s an original show, and that’s what really drew them,’ he says.

Coming from Wales, where myth, legends, fables, tales are at Olympic level, I felt like it was in some very familiar territory

Jaws was a chief inspiration for Dippold’s spooky island town. Just like the indelible Jaws mayor, Rhys’s Tom presides over a town in desperate need of summer dollars, but with beaches that probably shouldn’t be open.

Given this is a New England horror show, Stephen King also looms large.

Fans of his work and the wider genre will find plenty of delightful Easter eggs, including an entire second episode riffing on room 1408, in which Rhys says the prop department ‘outdid themselves’.

O’Flynn describes their showrunner as ‘obsessed’ with horror, which may take Parks and Recs fans by surprise. ‘And she’s a smallish blonde woman,’ says Root. ‘She doesn’t look like “I’d love to just rip your head off and drink your blood”. But she loves it. It’s fantastic.’

Widow’s Bay was filmed in New England, which the cast assured me was ‘beautiful’ despite the murky vibes of the show. They compared it to its own character, in part thanks to its use elsewhere on screen.

‘There’s a kind of false memory about the place, having seen it in different horror films or stories and books,’ says O’Flynn.

The jumps and bumps come with their own long history, which the townspeople maintain an encyclopedic memory of. Rhys’s mayor tries to dismiss them, but superstitions are well within the Welshman’s wheelhouse.

‘Coming from Wales, where myth, legends, fables, tales are at Olympic level, I felt like it was in some very familiar territory. Superstitions galore,’ he says. 

Plus, there’s a storied history of theatrical superstitions (‘break a leg’, The Scottish Play, etc) that as actors, they were well accustomed to. ‘You add to that everything that went with this; it was commonplace for us.’

So, it might have next to no Wi-Fi and a deeply unsettling vibe, but why not sojourn to Widow’s Bay this spring?

The first two episodes of Widow’s Bay are available to stream on Apple TV.

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