The highly-anticipated new season of SYFY’s SurrealEstate started off with a bang — literally — as the ghost of Housekeeper of the Cheevers’ family, Bernadette, fell to the bottom of the chimney where she had been stuffed and left to die after being impregnated by the homeowner.
It was an eerie opening with a heartbreaking revelation that perfectly sets up the tone for Season 3 of the supernatural series.
PopWire had the absolute pleasure of speaking with SurrealEstate Creator & Showrunner George R. Olson, where he praised Director Paolo Barzman as well as the incredibly flexible actress who portrayed Bernadette, and also previewed the spooky and scary spirits and demons that viewers can look forward to this time around.
“Paolo is so brilliant at scenes like that,” Olson tells us. “And he was trying to explain to me the look that he wanted to have because it has this kind of blue saturated tone and everything; very surreal, very interesting.
Albert Camicioli/SE3 Productions Inc./SYFY
“Just the way he set it up and the tone and everything, it’s your first big ghost scene of the season,” he continues. “You want it to be good. You want it to be visceral and really scary. Paolo is just so wonderful about those kinds of scenes. As we were putting it together, we’re like, ‘Oh, boy, this is cool.'”
The scene featured Canadian actress and stunt performer Dani Klupsch, who made her grand entrance as Ghost Bernadette by untangling herself and crawling out of a fireplace. Her appearance made a horrific and terrific first impression.
“The actress who played Bernadette was just absolutely brilliant in that,” Olson gushes about Klupsch. “She did have this ability to contort herself because that was part of what we were casting for. But to cast someone who could make those movements and create all that, but also delivered the lines just brilliantly and so emotionally and touchingly, you talk about a bonus.
Albert Camicioli/SE3 Productions Inc./SYFY
“You talk about a great all-around actor, that is her and she made that scene wonderful. She was just brilliant. I can’t say enough about that performance.”
This is just the beginning. Showrunner Olson reveals that there are many more performances from other ghostly spirits and demons that fans of SurrealEstate should most definitely stay tuned for.
“We have a young, teenage demon; we have an elderly gentleman who never really moved on and is in his own idea of heaven; we have a number of ghosts who find themselves back in places and haven’t really embraced the fact that they have died, which is a standard condition for a haunting. But they have that unfinished business and we get to watch and find out what that unfinished business is.
“And then we have just an absolute evil ghost that shows that they’re not all these benevolent, lost, fumbling little things,” Olson explains. “We have an absolute evil ghost that is haunting a family that makes a great story.”
SurreaEstate is the type of series that can potentially go on for several seasons and is ripe with so much stories they could tell with their tight-knit group at The Roman/Ireland Agency. The series creator shares that it’s too early to tell if SYFY will renew the horror-comedy for another season, and urges fans to tune in weekly so that the series isn’t driven to an early grave.
“There are so many different stories, so many different ghosts, so many different houses, so many different financing options,” George R. Olson says about the show. “It’s just such a rich world and our characters are so wonderful and adept at navigating it. I could do it for forever.”
SurrealEstate airs Thursdays at 10/9c on SYFY.
