Luke Guldan on ‘Tell Me a Story’ and His Upcoming Return to ‘The Good Place’ [Exclusive Interview]

Who doesn’t love a twist on a classic fairy tale?

The new CBS All Access series Tell Me A Story, which premieres this week, takes beloved fairy tales and reimagines them as a dark and twisted psychological thriller.

Set in modern-day New York City, the first season of the serialized drama interweaves “The Three Little Pigs,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Hansel and Gretel” into an epic and subversive tale of love, loss, greed, revenge, and murder.

I recently had the chance to speak with actor Luke Guldan about his role on the new series and what can we expect from the first season, as well as his upcoming return to the NBC comedy, The Good Place.

Guldan spoke a bit about what makes Tell Me A Story unique and why he thinks audiences will be excited to watch.

“In this first season, three of [the stories] intertwine,” he explained. “At least from the work that I have done and I have seen and read on this one, it is definitely grounded in reality, truth. [It’s] modern-day New York City — pretty gritty, pretty vibey, and definitely modern and based on reality.”

Of the three fairy tales reimagined this season, Guldan will appear in the reimagining of Hansel and Gretel, in three out of the season’s ten episodes. “I’m really curious to see what happens as they go further down the rabbit hole,” he said.  “It was definitely something new for me for sure.”

“I play Billy. I play the roommate and friend of Gabe,” Guldan said, describing his character briefly. “We just kind of get into what roommates typically get into in New York City modern day.”

For Guldan, one of the biggest challenges in working on this series was having to prepare quickly.

“I did a couple of auditions, and everything is fast, and everything is very confidential — rightfully so because they don’t want leaks, especially if the plot unfolds as the series goes,” he noted.

That meant he only had minimal information about the script at first, with only his own pages and lines and a brief character breakdown.

“I got the rest of the scripts from my involvement when I was on the plane, and I read them when I was on my way from LA to New York. Then I was going be there getting ready to shoot the next day or the day after,” Guldan laughed.

The other main challenge was about the acting itself.

“For me, a challenge was finding a lot of fun with the character that I was able to do on tape [and] and then being able to bring that into an environment that was now new,” he explained. “[To] bring that character with me basically from LA to New York and to set, and to just do what I felt that I could do and what the character in the project deserved.”

In addition to appearing on Tell Me A Story, Guldan will also return to NBC’s The Good Place as Chris Baker.

Fans of the show will remember him as a temporary “soul mate” for Eleanor in Michael’s new version of his experiment at the end of The Good Place Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2. Guldan will be back as Chris for The Good Place Season 3 Episode 8.

“This season is even better if possible than the last two, from what I have seen,” Guldan said. He described his return as having a “different energy” this time, at least in part because he’ll appear in the middle of the season.

“It’s gonna be great. It just seems like it’s a snowball, that it’s just really got its momentum and just building and building, so coming right in the middle of that was really exciting,” he shared.

“The portion where I get to come and play is definitely — it seems just great,”  Guldan laughed. “It’s gonna be funny, and fun, and big, and hopefully just right what the fans and everybody is looking for at that point and time.”

I’m looking forward to seeing it. There were a couple of alternates we did, so I don’t even know,” he continued. “I was just blown away by the production value and the excitement again, just the energy of everybody around was awesome.”

Guldan is staying busy and has a few other upcoming projects as well. The first is the sci-fi film, Final Frequency, where he’ll star alongside Charles Shaughnessy, Lou Ferrigno Jr., and Kirby Bliss Blanton.

The second is Fluidity, directed by Linda Yellen, which Guldan noted may come out in early 2019. He’ll star alongside Nico Tortorella, Isabella Farrell, Tommy Dorfman, and James Chen. “I play a cop who is kind of deep in the dating app game,” he said.

“It just has to do with this generation, and dating, and gender identities,” Guldan explained. “It was a cool, timely, interesting project and definitely different.”

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Be sure to catch Luke Guldan on Tell Me A Story, which premieres this Wednesday, October 31st on CBS All Access. The Good Place airs Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c on NBC.

Check out the trailer for Tell Me A Story here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nzLiWcGiU&feature=youtu.be

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