Paul Wesley and James Wolk Discuss Fairy Tale-Inspired Series ‘Tell Me a Story’ at San Diego Comic-Con [Video]

While attending San Diego Comic-Con, we had the opportunity to speak with actors Paul Wesley and James Wolk about their upcoming new series, Tell Me a Story.

Speaking to reporters in a press roundtable, Wesley and Wolk, two of the series’ main cast members, discussed the new dark and twist-y psychological thriller set to debut on the streaming service CBS All Access.

The show is based on the Mexican television series Érase una vez and is being adapted by Kevin Williamson (known for creating both Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries). Williamson serves as the executive producer, head writer, and showrunner.

According to CBS All Access, the new show “takes the world’s most beloved fairy tales and reimagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller.” Season 1 of the show, which is set in modern-day New York City, will feature updated versions of “The Three Little Pigs,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk,” interweaving these stories into one “epic and subversive tale of love, loss, greed, revenge and murder.”

“It essentially takes fairy tales that we all grew up with as children […] and it re-contextualizes them. It puts them in New York City, and it humanizes them,” Wesley said.

Wesley is perhaps best known for his role as Stefan Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries. But don’t expect to see him sporting fangs in his new series.

“There’s nothing supernatural about our show,” he said. “These are actual humans, but they very subtly and very intricately fill the shows of these [fairy tale] archetypes.”

Wesley plays Eddie, who is part of the show’s re-telling of “The Three Little Pigs” story.

“My character is actually one of the little pigs. I’m a guy who’s down on his luck, who comes from a very broken life. I make a choice to do something quite bad, and that is the catalyst for the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ and that is how Jordan [played by Wolk] and I intersect,” he continued.

Wolk said it will be fun for the audience to see these familiar old stories in a brand new way.

“We all know those stories, whether they were told to us by our grandparents when we were kids or whether we read them in school. Those stories live in all of us. To see it manifested in a 10-episode series in an adult drama is gonna be exciting for people to watch,” he explained.

Wesley said that they’ve only gotten to see the first four episodes of the series and have only shot the first one or two. But we’re likely to be surprised by the unexpected ways the story retellings unfold.

“The outcome in the fairy tale may not be the outcome in our story. [Williamson] may twist it. So for example, in ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ the third pig who built his house out of brick was the one who outsmarted the wolf and [proved] hard work was his great strength,” Wesley said. “But in today’s world, does hard work really pay off? That’s the question that [Williamson] asks, so maybe that little pig doesn’t outsmart the wolf [in Tell Me a Story‘s version].”

Watch the full interview with Paul Wesley and James Wolk here:

A premiere date for Tell Me a Story has not yet been announced. The series will stream on CBS All Access.

Check out all of our coverage of San Diego Comic-Con here. There is a lot more to come!

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