Syfy’s upcoming series SurrealEstate deals with a lot of supernatural forces, whether it be ghosts, beasts, spirits and/or demons. How the main group of real estate agents come into contact with these entities is via all of the houses that they inhabit. PopWire had the chance to speak with Sarah Levy and Tim Rozon about the hauntingly humorous show, where they discuss on-set hauntings, the writing on the show, and what viewers can expect for its first season.
Being a part of a project that’s set in anything supernatural, there’s always bound to be some interesting, unexplainable things that may happen during production. For Levy, however, she shares that she didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary. “I kind of wish spooky things happened on this set,” she says. “But that being said, there were places that people were staying where they were finding a lot of spooky things and vibes happening. It was around, I just didn’t get any of it.”
Levy’s co-star, Rozon, says that going into SurrealEstate, he was 100% a non-believer. His mind quickly changed throughout the season and after the season had wrapped. There were “a large number of guest stars that did experience something that they compared to a ghostly experience,” he says. “It was just almost everybody. It was a lot. It’s tough to not believe everybody.” He says that he, too, hadn’t experienced anything himself, but that he’s very open to it. “Supposedly it is the sensitivity or something you have to have [for something to happen]. Maybe I don’t have that sensitivity yet.”
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When preparing for the series, Levy admits that she “should’ve done a little bit more research,” but she did do a little bit of research into how the real estate business and the paranormal all works. With the brilliant writing of creator George R. Olson, she got a lot of help in understanding who her character is and what she does. “George’s writing was so very present and there anyway that I felt like I connected to those parts of us just from reading the script.”
“I feel like George is such a strong writer that he explains everything to the audience and to me as we went along, which was great,” Rozon adds. “I did learn doing this that a house that’s being haunted or has the implication that it has been haunted, in real life, will impact its market value when you try to sell the house. I did learn a lot of stuff that I just didn’t know before.”
It was Olson’s pilot script and the two scenes that Levy used for her audition that garnered interest in her for the role. “They were just such perfect scenes to define who the character of Susan is and how she is in her professional world and how she relates to people in her personal world,” she says. “It was just such a relatable character and funny and all that.” And though it was the audition scenes that drew her to the role, she exclaims that “the project itself is fantastic from start to finish.”
For Tim, the show’s creator is “one of the best writers” he has ever worked with. “His scripts are so good on paper,” Rozon says. “If you could put what’s so perfect on paper on the screen, we’re fine. It’s amazing that they let us play within that area and go places because it’s so perfect.”
The actor recalls a scene that takes place in the series premiere where his character Luke explains to one of the homeowners what it is that the agency does. “It was so interesting to me,” he says. “It was so out of my wheelhouse and [the scene] was five pages! It was so much. It hooked me right away. I couldn’t wait to delve in more and find out more.”
In the premiere, we’ll get to learn a little about the members within The Roman Agency, but we’ll learn even more of Levy’s character Susan, a newcomer to the group who becomes an integral part of the agency. “I come in having no idea what they do,” Levy says. “I just see them as a real estate agency. I’m explained very quickly what I’m actually getting myself into.
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“Luke does give me an out, and if I’m not up to the job, then I can get out of there,” she continues. “Ultimately, Susan’s come from a vulnerable place. She has just left a very high-profile job and is looking for something new and different. She’s welcomed into this really bizarre, strange world of real estate agents and this team. Her arc is her transition between being a non-believer and being a believer, and falling in line with the rest of this eclectic team.”
The Team at The Roman Agency will be dealing with not one, but two properties in the SurrealEstate‘s premiere, both of which have some sort of demonic presence. “There’s a couple of houses that we’re trying to sell that will deal with a different demon, or whatever it is you want to call it, for the house,” Rozon previews. “Whether it’s the house itself, or the person selling the house, the person buying the house, whoever it’s dealing with. It also lays the groundwork for the internal demons that the characters that we play will be facing, which in some ways will be much scarier than the physical demons we have to encounter.”
SurrealEstate premieres Friday, July 16 at 10pm on Syfy.