Interview: Joe Anderson and Leslie Hope Tease The River Finale

ABC's The River has proven to be a bold experiment for the network. Not only is it a dyed in the wool horror story�complete with ghosts, beasts, curses, and zombies�The River is also shot in the faux found-footage style that was already pushed to the limits by The River's co-creator Oren Peli. The River has itself transcended the style by delivering a weekly series that creatively navigates any of the potential narrative pitfalls you would expect to come from the confines of the found footage method.

Tonight's "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", airing at 9PM EST on ABC, brings The River's first season to a close. Series stars Joe Anderson (Lincoln Cole) and Leslie Hope (Tess Cole) took time to chat with me about the finale, The River, and what to expect tonight and in the future.

What can we look forward to in tonight's Finale?

Joe: We are probably looking forward to some demonic activity. It gets a little twisted towards the end. It's a bit a hardcore, a very dark episode, I think.

Leslie: I would agree.

Joe: I know it has been emotional for everybody on every episode, but this one especially, I think, does a lot for every character. It's quite rich and full.

Leslie: I think we find out more about Thomas's character, Kurt. We get a little more insight into the family relationships by virtue of the fact that the shit hits the fan. Let me just do a shout out to my TV son. He kicks ass in this episode.

We won't go into exactly what happens, but some tragedy befalls the Cole family yet again and you, Leslie, have to go to some pretty dark places in this episode. It must have been difficult to break yet another emotional plateau after you've covered that ground so much already this season.

Leslie: That is correct. It was, from beginning to end, a challenge to sustain that in this particular show. Just when you think you're going to take a little bit of a break, it gets that much worse, I think. That being said, it was never like a show where we thought we were going to relax or we thought that the tension was going to lift. But I do thing they pulled everything out of the bag for this last episode. I think it's a killer good.

I know this has been talked about a lot, but this found footage method, has that brought any additional challenges to you as actors?

Joe: Yeah, I think definitely. For sure, you're not dealing with a singular camera/singular fourth wall that you pretend isn't there. We're very much aware that we're being filmed as characters and definitely as actors. When you have so many cameras rolling, that in Itself can be very revealing. You have to tailor things in a slightly different way.

Leslie: I must say, you actually don't have a moment to relax, which helps you as an actor. For me it did, anyway. Because there is no sort of in between setups or downtime, you are always on or could always be filmed at very moment. I like, as well, that there was a bit of a puzzle to solve in terms of what you would serve up emotionally when how much is going to be caught by the cameras and how much simply might be caught by the other actors, for them to react to. I love this, I have to say. I also love that you didn't have to spend as much time with lighting setups. You didn't have to spend as much time hitting precise marks doing form release or architecturally designed scenes. It felt a bit more like doing a play that was being filmed.

Where does the finale leave the story? Is it kind of the close of one chapter and the beginning of another, or is this an ongoing thing for us?

Leslie: It's the close of one chapter. We are all hopeful it is the beginning of another.

Joe: Yeah, it's actually quite clever in the way that it ends. I think it lends itself to something that could be ongoing in a very sort of perpetual way. It's a world that is ever changing and without giving away anything, you know. That's where very apparent by the end of the episode. It's exciting actually to see, wow, if that is possible, if it can end like that, what could they do for the next one? That's pretty exciting.

The series has dealt with some really classic and contemporary horror archetypes. I'm wondering if you guys were fans at all when you came into the series. Do you guys consider it horror on set? Obviously a lot of The River is pretty scary, but it's also seen as maybe more of a mystical fairytale almost with the magical river and these threshold guardian creatures around every bend. What is your take on it?

Leslie: I didn't know too much about the genre, frankly. It wasn't something that I had ever really acted in. It was something my son � my real life son who is almost 19 � was never a huge fan of. It was new to me. But I felt like the archetypes, they were wrestling with in the show were more sort of classic good and evil, more biblical in a way, especially since we're heading into our final episode. I thought that for me, anyway, it offers an opportunity to deal with big emotions. You can't � some of the things I've been talking about, you can't do this stuff casually, I don't think. I found that interesting and challenging to do. But to do a shorter answer, it was not a genre I knew. I'm really thrilled to be a part of it at my age.

Joe: Yeah, it was interesting for me. I had worked on a few other things, and it is a genre that I'm a fan of. Like constantly looking for the horror movie that pushes the desensitized audience of today, you know, and there was something that I thought, wow, this is going to be quite amazing to try and sort of get this week in, week out. How scary can this actually be? To take the sort of pairing of Oren Peli's Paranormal Movies and Blair Witch and take that on a regular basis, those two alone were just amazing really, I thought, as a concept. I was drawn to that immediately, and in itself I think it has worked fantastically.

Is there any news on whether The River is coming back, or are you just holding your breath at this point?

Leslie: We're holding our breath to mid May. Hopefully audience members are to find out, hopefully, that we're coming back for a second season. We don't have an indication one way or the other, we are as in the dark as you are.