Adam Korson Gets Sur-Real About the Metaphysical on ‘SurrealEstate’ [Interview]

Syfy’s upcoming series SurrealEstate is going to take you on “a roller coaster ride of emotions,” according to actor Adam Korson.

SurrealEstate puts a slightly different spin on the supernatural formula by creating a team of real estate agents who deal in haunted homes. 

I recently spoke with Adam Korson, who plays a member of the real estate team, to describe all that this show is.

“As I wrote in an email to George [Olson], it has heart, humor, and hell,” Korson said.

“We say it’s a real estate group that specializes in haunted houses. But it’s more than that. It’s things that literally want to keep buyers away. This real estate team handles those homes,” Korson explained. “It leaves room for not only the supernatural and metaphysical and ghosts — for a better word, but it also gives us a platform to really get to know these cool and relatable characters.”

This show stars Tim Rozon playing the leader of the group, Luke Roman, and Sarah Levy who plays newcomer, Susan Ireland. The rest of the team is made up of Maurice Dean Wint as August Ripley, Savannah Basley as Zooey L’Enfant, and Korson as Father Phil Orley.

“My character is Father Phil Orley a fallen priest of the Catholic Church. He split ties with the church and found Luke Roman where he gets to do exactly what he wanted to do in the church, but now he gets to do it for a real estate group. He’s the analytical one, basically. He’s done all the research.”

Orley is the kind of character who knows everything about everyone and everything they deal in. He thrives on knowledge, research, and history. All the while believing in the work the team is doing for these homes to be livable once more.

“George Olson, our creator, crafted something really beautifully. You can watch each episode on its own but, over the season you really start to see these characters develop. And that comes from the arcs [George Olson] created,” Korson said.

SurrealEstate truly is an ensemble show, and so to really know the show you have to know each of the characters as well. Korson eagerly told me what he could about his fellow real estate team members. 

“August, he’s got all the gadgets — all of the fun sort of gadgets and things. Then there’s Susan. She’s the new one on the scene. I won’t go into too much detail about Susan because she’s a real fun character.”

“We have Zooey — she’s more the sarcastic receptionist, but she also brings a different perspective to things. Then of course, there is Luke. He’s the one just trying to figure out how much we can do as a team. He also has the ability to deal with the supernatural world in ways that the rest of the team cannot.”

Digging deeper into the bones of what this show is as a whole led us to talk about just what Korson believes in his own world. It takes a particular kind of person to look at certain events in reality and decide whether or not something more is going on. Korson is definitely that kind of person.

“I love it. There’s not much I’m actually scared about. My wife is psychic. I think I’ll just say that. I mean she sees things and notices things. I’ve had my own personal experiences with, let’s just say, things that cannot be explained,” Korson laughed.

“I totally believe that when we die we don’t go away. We just continue.”

Naturally, that makes joining this show an almost kismet situation for as strong a believer as Adam Korson. He even said that he felt the role was “perfect” the first time he heard about it.

We also discussed how different things were filming this show because of the current health crisis, and Korson made an analogy to another famous supernatural media form, Beetlejuice.

“When we first got to St. John’s, where we filmed, we had to be quarantined for 14 days. It was like that scene in Beetlejuice where they’ve just come back home after dying, and they step inside and then they are stuck there. They can’t leave.” 

Korson continued describing the events of being stuck in that Victorian house with the highest regard. Filming under such strict guidelines helped them develop a strong bond.

“We were so collaborative and open to trying new things, and the crew and directors were too.”

Korson even commented that where they filmed played into their closeness as well because they were, literally, “on an island.”  

He also spoke about working with Tim Rozon and Sarah Levy specifically. “If [Rozon and Levy] were bad horrible people then it would totally change the whole dynamic. Luckily they are, of course, the most generous, kindest people,” Korson said.  

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You can catch Adam Korson in SurrealEstate which premieres Friday, July 16th at 10/9c on Syfy.

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