In the USA, turning 21 is a time of new experiences. You can legally drink and buy cigarettes. You can go to nightclubs. And if you’re Reaper’s hero Sam, you find out that your parents sold your soul before you were born, and you now have to serve as the Devil’s bounty hunter. Happy Birthday, Sam! Words: Abbie Bernstein

The CW’s new comedy fantasy Reaper is the brainchild of creators/executive producers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, who first teamed up as assistants on The X-Files. Their new series sees Ray Wise’s Satan employ 21-year-old slacker Sam (Bret Harrison) to help him retrieve souls that have escaped from hell. But doesn’t their version of Satan seem just a little, well, nice? “It doesn’t serve The Devil to be evil, to come at you with horns and pitchfork,” Fazekas explains. “His purpose is to tempt, to cajole…He’s going to be your buddy to get you to do evil things.”

Fellow Reaper executive producer and show runner Tom Spezialy elaborates. “It’s like working with a wild animal. When you work with the Devil, he could turn on you. You can’t trust him completely. But he’s sometimes working in Sam’s interest. He has the ability to be caring and affirmative and a good friend to Sam. But always know that behind it, he has an agenda.”

By all accounts, it was sheer hell finding the right actor to play the Devil. The role eventually went to Ray Wise, perhaps best known for playing Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks. “I think every actor in Hollywood read for the role and I came in at the tail end,” Wise recalls. “There were a variety of interpretations of the Devil, none of which really hit the mark. And then I came in and I did it and I felt their response immediately - and it was, ‘You’re the Devil!’”

Wise’s Satan is very urbane and charming, unlike some of his more tormented characters, including the aforementioned Leland Palmer and his suicidal newsman in Good Night, and Good Luck. The actor says that it made a pleasant change to play a much more relaxed character who gets to do the tormenting himself. “I’m basking in this role. When they hired me, I felt the vibe from them that they were all on board with me as the character, and it really gave me a sense of empowerment. I felt the power of the Devil. And I mean that in a good way. Now it’s just no holds barred. Watch out.”

Sympathy for the Devil

In the role of bounty hunting slacker Sam is Bret Harrison, who previously starred in the indie film Lightning Bug and sitcom Grounded for Life. It’s obvious that Harrison has been having a ball playing opposite Wise. “We have fun banter. Right now, even though he plays the Devil, he has fun messing with me and it’s very light. It’s the first few episodes, and if you start him off as a bad guy - as essentially [the common conception of] the Devil - he could kill you at any minute, right? So then you’d have no TV show.

“I think he’s getting ready to throw me in the deep end. We’re having a lot of fun, but in the next episode, it starts to become even more intense…he just might kill me. It gets more fun when your life is on the line!”

Everybody working on the show seems genuinely pleased to have secured Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma) to direct the Reaper pilot. “After the script had been picked up and CW bought it, we started the process of hiring directors,” Spezialy explains. “We [sent the script] out to a bunch of different directors. We submitted it to Kevin Smith, figuring, ‘Oh, he’ll never do it.’ He called back and said, ‘I’ll do it!’ This is his first pilot for a television show. He worked out for us.”

“It was a dream come true,” agrees Rick Gonzales, who plays Sam’s friend Ben. “I’m a big fan of his. What I love about Kevin is his energy and how he’s such a fun person to work with. I think I speak for the rest of the cast – he allows you to improvise and find the right tone for your work and how to find just the intricacies and the small things that you can add to the character.”

Tyler Labine, who plays Sam’s friend and co-worker Sock, jokes that for him the highlight of the pilot was getting to hurl objects at Harrison. “How can you not have fun throwing things at Bret Harrison? It’s great!” Labine laughs, referring to a scene in which Sock misunderstands his pal's new gift.

Labine came to Reaper after working on the shows Invasion and Boston Legal, and he acknowledges that he wasn’t expecting to return to another TV series so soon. “The draw here was that, once I met with Kevin and we discussed what I wanted to do, I was promised the freedom to do what I wanted to do with the character. And also the fact that it was well-written, it was funny, I really enjoyed the whole idea behind it – I didn’t expect to be totally drawn into a show like this, but I found myself there.”

Heaven can wait

Missy Peregrym (Candace in Heroes) came late to the party, and was brought in to replace Nikki Reed who had played the role in the pilot. This required reshooting all the scenes in which the character appears. “I’ve never done that before,” Peregrym says, “and I was a little nervous, because it’s weird to see something already completed, and then you’re going to redo it. But Kevin Smith was amazing. He was really laid back and easygoing and made it comfortable. And all the guys were really welcoming on set as well, so that made it easy.”

Harrison also praises the on-set camaraderie. “I can’t feel more blessed to be in the situation that I am. It’s so much fun to have Tyler and Rick in there, because all we do every day is show up on set, we have the lines, we read them back and forth, [thinking] how can we make it different and make it our own...When you make it your own, it becomes real and natural and becomes a better show.”

There have been occasional glitches during shooting, not least when Harrison received a literal shock during the filming of Reaper’s second episode, when Sam tangles with a demon that creates electricity. “They put a wire up through my leg, all the way up my body, down to my finger. I’m climbing down a ladder and I touch something and there’s this big shock. After three or four times, the wire got really hot and it went up my leg and into my arm and it did this weird thing…The people that are doing the special effects assured me two seconds before, ‘Nah [it won’t really shock you].’ ‘Then why am I shaking right now? Because I feel like I’m going to pass out!’”

Mostly, though, things are looking heavenly on Reaper’s Vancouver set. Mark Gordon, another of the show’s executive producers, says he has high hopes for the diabolical action comedy. “I’m interested in emotional, warm characters, and people who care about other people. I think this show is wildly entertaining and is going to be a huge crowd-pleaser…”

Reaper is currently airing on The CW.