Actress Annie Parisse stopped by the New York Post’s studio to talk about her hit Fox television show,”The Following,” with Name Check host Michael Ridel.
Parisse, who plays a FBI specialist, said that her show focuses on a cult and explained the fascination with controversial groups throughout history.
TRANSCRIPT:
Michael Riedel: Welcome to “Name Check.” I’m Michael Riedel of the New York Post. I am joined by a beautiful and very, very talented actress, Annie Parisse, is how you say it, I believe.
Annie Parisse: Yeah.
Michael: But in the old country, in Italy, where you’re from it would be…?
Annie: [Italian accent] Parisse.
Michael: Parisse.
She is now appearing as FBI Specialist Debra Parker in “The Following,” on the Fox channel with Kevin Bacon. It airs on Monday. But I know her from “Clybourne Park,” which was a terrific play that won the Tony award last year.
She jumps back and forth between the small screen, the stage, and the big screen.
Annie: Yes.
Michael: Welcome to “Name Check,” my dear.
Annie: Thank you so much.
Michael: “The Following,” is this one of these murky, strange, unsettling kinds of things where we never really know what’s going on in the plot?
Annie: You know what? Yes and no. On the one hand, it is certainly murky and strange. It is certainly…It’s a horror show.
I think what it is, more than anything else, is a gothic romance. It’s very…
Michael: Daphne du Maurier type of thing?
Annie: Yeah. Edgar Allan Poe is…There’s a lot of…It’s very psychological.
Michael: Supernatural kind of things?
Annie: It’s very supernatural. It’s very…It really gets into what are our darker impulses and how do they take over?
Michael: Like hearts thumping under the floorboards and cats on people’s heads…
Annie: People buried in the walls.
Michael: “The Cask of Amontillado.” I love that one. That’s good.
Annie: Exactly.
Michael: You’re an FBI Specialist. What does that mean, exactly? What do you specialize in?
Annie: I specialize in cults on the show and alternative religion as the FBI actually calls it. Because, as I found out when I started the job, “cult” is one of the most hotly debated words in the English language. The definition of it because, obviously, it is dealing with religion and people feel very strongly on both sides of the fence.
It’s sort of a thing…I’ve found in my research it was like…It’s like one man’s cult is another man’s religion and nobody wants you to refer to them as a cult.
Michael: Interesting, though. The history of cults, though. I guess the most famous, or infamous, we should say, cult of all time was the Charles Manson family, Helter Skelter, that Vincent Bugliosi, I think his name was… He was the LA district attorney who solved the Helter Skelter case.
I always thought about cults, and forgive me if you’re religious out there, but it seems to me that a lot of cults involve a significant amount of drug use. That was certainly going on with the Manson family. All the psychedelic drug use.
That’s how, Jim Jones, for example, how you cast a spell on people.
Annie: It’s interesting. I did a lot of looking at Charlie Manson because that’s certainly, for Kevin Williamson, our creator, that was a big inspiration. Given that Joe Carroll is a serial killer and he’s enlisting other people to do his dirty work with him.
Also, Jim Jones. I tried to also look at… One of the books that I read was called, “Under the Banner of Heaven.”
Michael: Yes, that’s John Krakauer’s book about the Utah murders. A very good book.
Annie: That’s an amazing book. Looking…
Michael: About the Mormons.
Annie: About the Fundamental Church of Latter Day Saints, which the regular Mormon church totally disavows them, whereas the FDLS totally disavows the regular Mormon church.
On the one hand, they’re super, super strict in the FDLS about drug use and any of that, but then some of the leaders have, in fact…
Michael: Been big alcoholics and drug users.
Annie: Or even psychedelic drugs, in terms of contacting the higher power. It’s so twisted, some of that stuff. I will say, in the context of working on this show, that some of the scariest stuff that I’ve read was the stuff about cults because you look at it and you go, “How does any sane person…”
Michael: Fall for this?
Annie: “…fall for this?”
Michael: A lot of the people were ex drug addicts and alcoholics that Jim Jones rounded up in his church.
Do you think that this whole interest in serial killers, do you think it really still stems from “The Silence of the Lambs?” Do you think that Anthony Hopkins’ performance is what really has given birth to this whole fascination with serial killers?
Annie: That was an incredible, a landmark performance, and I think it’s certainly one of the draws. To me, the fascination with serial killers is about the fascination with the ‘other’ because a serial killer is a psychopath, generally. Psychopaths are actually, really, really, really rare in our culture, are people who don’t…Or in society, in the world. They’re people who don’t feel guilt. They’re people who don’t feel fear.
I think that most of us feel those things. There’s a kind of…They’re almost like superheroes. Not to glorify them, but you know what I mean? They’re supervillains. But they’re actual. They really do exist.
Michael: That’s it. And you think of John Wayne Gacy who buried all those boys in his basement. In the clown outfit, entertaining children.
Annie: It’s amazing.
Michael: If you go back and look at John Wayne Gacy, look at that clown makeup, it’s all angular. Most clowns, they do soft lines. He had…
If you can capture this stuff on your show, I’m not going to watch because I’d be too scared.
Lovely chatting with you, Annie Parisse, about serial killers. She plays Debra Parker, an FBI Specialist in cults and alternative religions in “The Following,” with Kevin Bacon, which airs Mondays on Fox.
Thank you, my dear, for being my guest.
Annie: Thank you.
Michael: I’ll see you next time on “Name Check.”