How Hulu’s ‘Living for the Dead’ Found Its Cast of ‘Spooky Bitches’
“Queer Eye” has its “Fab Five” and the crew of Hulu’s “Living for the Dead” ghost-hunting show have nicknamed themselves the “Spooky Bitches,” co-executive producer Rena Lombardo of Scout Productions told TheWrap ahead of Wednesday’s series premiere.
The paranormal show is from executive producer Kristen Stewart, who brought the idea for the series to Scout with her friend C.J. Romero, who also serves as an e.p.
Described as a sort of “gay Scooby-Doo,” it was a natural fit for Scout Productions, whose shows include Netflix’s “Queer Eye” and HBO series “Legendary.” In each episode, the cast visits notoriously haunted locations around the country and commune with both the the dead and the people whose lives have been disrupted by the ghostly happenings.
Assembling the team of experts once the show was picked up was a “magical” process for Lombardo. The five-member team is comprised of tarot card reader Ken Boggle, witch Juju Bae, psychic Logan Taylor, paranormal researcher Roz Hernandez and tech expert Alex Le May.
“We cast a really wide net to find these experts, and we were excited,” said Lombardo, who said they went through a process of “of mixing and matching one-on-ones” for the best combination. “We found our cast. So it was magic. It was definitely magic.”
“The casting process process is always the most fun part because you’re building a team. You have an idea of what you want, and the cast reveals themselves to you. They do find each other and then the bonds happen, so their friendships started early. And it’s just fun to watch them arc over the season, and how deep the relationships really become,” co-executive producer David Collins said.
None of the experts had met before casting, but they definitely have each others’ back in the field. When Taylor is overwhelmed by malevolent ghost energy at the Palomino strip club in Las Vegas, the rest of his castmates hustle him and out and make sure he’s OK.
“He definitely was feeling overwhelmed,” Lombardo said. “There’s so much history there. We all were getting chills and freaking out when we were covering that because a lot was happening.”
Collins described the show as “paranormal with heart.” He added, “I think is a new genre. Quire frankly, we haven’t seen paranormal that has the humor and hearts that ‘Living for the Dead’ does.” It’s probably the first paranormal show where one of the cast (in this case, Roz), asks a ghost if she should change her hairstyle.
For Scout’s first paranormal series, they relied on the expertise of showrunner Elaine White, who previously worked on “Haunted Highway” and “Portals to Hell.” Collins said, “I’m going to give her all the credit for [helping us realize our premise] of helping the living through talking to the dead.”
All eight episodes of “Living for the Dead” are now streaming on Hulu.
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