Calgary-born actor Kelsey Flower’s big break may be based on his performance as a subpar zombie killer.
“I’m Lance and basically, I’m the guy that’s terrible at the Apocalypse. You’d think he’d be the first to die. Get away from Lance if you can,” laughed Flower as he explained his role in the new Netflix series Black Summer.
Currently living in Toronto, Flower returned to Calgary to begin filming his part in the eight-episode series which took place at Queen Elizabeth High School this week — not far from where Flower’s parents live.
“It’s really nice to have that sort of homecoming but I am staying with my parents so it’s kind of that thing: ‘Mom, I’m on the Netflix set!’ ‘That’s great, could you clean your room please?’ ”
Despite Flower’s humorous take on his character, Black Summer is a drama. It stars Jaime King and was co-created by Karl Schaefer and John Hyams, the latter two having worked on Syfy’s popular zombie series Z Nation. Both will also serve as showrunners.
“The essence of our story is really just a mother being separated from her daughter. And the story is: what would a mother do to find her child? And what we learn is that she would do anything,” said Hyams.
“It is essentially the idea of an American refugee crisis in our country but in the kind of genre confines of what we would call a kind of viral outbreak zombie Apocalypse,” he explained.
“We hope that it’s a very relatable story… We’re taking a large concept and we’re telling it through the eyes of these characters,” added Hyams.
For Flower, his chance to play one those characters is “a dream come true.”
“This is the biggest thing for sure. I was more of a theatre kid for a while and then started to do a little film. This is definitely the most I’ve ever had on a series, so it’s really fun.”
Production on the original series will continue in Beiseker and Cochrane before wrapping back in Calgary around mid to late September.
Black Summer is expected to hit Netflix in early 2019.
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