Exclusive: Audra McDonald, Will Swenson talk Spectrum's zombie series The Bite
Coming out this week on Spectrum is the new series, The Bites, starring six-time Tony winner and 2020 Tony nominee Audra McDonald, Taylor Schilling, Phillipa Soo, Steven Pasquale, Will Swenson, Leslie Uggams, Jackie Hoffman, Beth Leavel, Adam Heller, Rob McClure, Linda Emond, Ryan Spahn, and Michael Urie. The series is set to premiere May 21 on Spectrum Originals.
THE BITE is co-produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios and the series is created and written by Robert & Michelle King. The show is also produced by their production company King Size Productions with Liz Glotzer and Brooke Kennedy also serving as executive producers.
THE BITE follows the lives of two neighbors Rachel (Audra McDonald, The Good Fight) and Lily (Taylor Schilling, Orange is the New Black) as they embark on unprecedented times when a deadly new strain of a virus arrives. Navigating the new normal in New York City, Rachel works from home juggling her many telemedicine clients and a shaky marriage to her husband Dr. Zach (Steven Pasquale, The Comey Rule) who has a prestigious job at the CDC miles away in Washington D.C. Meanwhile, Lily is upstairs trying to convince her Wall Street clientele that her very specific skillset is still just as valuable through a video screen as it was in person.
For McDonald, she gets to work with producers Robert & Michelle King again after her other series with them CBS All-Access’ The Good Fight was shut down early into Season 4 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. She also gets to work up and close and personal with her husband Will Swenson. While they have worked together before on the stage, this is the first they have worked on a TV series together.
Two of the main storylines of The Bite were filmed in a brownstone in Manhattan. The actors were assigned certain floors, and the control room also had its own floor. Audra McDonald and Will Swenson filmed their scenes together on one floor, Taylor Schilling on another, and a separate floor held the control room.
BlackFilmandTV.com’s Wilson Morales spoke to Audra and Will on working on this zombie series.