Matthew Rhys Teases Unique Tone of Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay’: “I’ve Never Read Anything Like This”

Apple TV dropped a teaser for Widow’s Bay earlier this month, and the horror series looked predictably scary with ominous music paired with chilling sequences in a New England island town. But there’s a moment at the end of the trailer that telegraphed that the series is not a typical jump scare show.

“I don’t understand,” says Matthew Rhys, playing the town’s mayor, Tom Loftis, who is perplexed by the tale of a killer sea hag. “How do you die?” Stephen Root’s character has a surprising answer: “She crawls into your bed and sits on your face.”

The punchline is indicative of a level of comedy infused throughout in creator Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay. The series is set in, well, Widow’s Bay, which is 40-miles off the coast of New England. Mayor Tom Loftis (Rhys) is desperate to revive his struggling community in the face of some challenging circumstances like the absence of Wi-Fi, spotty cellular reception and superstitious locals who believe the place is cursed. Loftis remains determined to build a better future for his teenage son and turn the island into a tourist destination. As he begins to succeed in his goal, old stories that seemed too ludicrous begin happening, sending shivers throughout the island. Rhys and Root star opposite Kate O’Flynn, Kingston Rumi Southwick, Kevin Caroll and Dale Dickey.

“I’d certainly never read anything like it,” Rhys said during an Apple TV panel discussion at the streamer’s Santa Monica press day in February. “I’d grown up with things like the Wicker Man and Jaws and things like this, and this was kind of everything I’d always thought I would never get to do. When I knew it was this mash-up and meeting these two, it was sort of done in a millisecond. It became a true dream job.”

Murai, best known for his work on Atlanta and The Bear, agreed about the show’s singular tone. “I just never read anything like it before. It felt like a TV show from the past but so modern at the same time.  And to be totally honest, when I first read it I was like, I don’t know what this is yet, and that’s always the most exciting place to start,” he said of working with Dippold, who has experience blending horror and comedy after having written the features Haunted Mansion and Ghostbusters. “I’ve never read something that has so much hard comedy in it and truly scary kind of terrifying horror while trying to be honest about the emotional lives of these characters. It felt like we’re just kind of like hanging on to two sled dogs at the same time.”

Rhys added that the laughs are not shoehorned in for fun. “There’s no conscious choice of anything comedic. Everything is played for real in the situation and then what comes comes,” he said. “Almost every script surprised me in the genuine sense and just getting to watch the visual world or the visual mind of Hiro Murai was a real treat and seeing how you brought things to life. I would often go oh my God, that’s so dark. I was constantly surprised in the best way and obviously nothing I can say into a microphone.”

The 10-episode series will make its global debut on Wednesday, April 29, by dropping the first three episodes. New episodes will follow every Wednesday through June 17.