Whose Line Is it Anyway?, Nashville and Outer Banks actor Charles Esten says he jumped at the chance to play Cain in the new post-apocalyptic drama, Homestead, because he was so unlike his past characters.
“I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve never had an entrance like that where this mysterious helicopter lands on the mountain ridge and out steps a boot and it’s a guy that [the main character] clearly did not want to call, but she felt she had to,” Esten, 60, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
Now streaming on the subscription Angel app, the series is a follow-up to Homestead, the 2024 film adaptation of Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross’ Black Autumn series of books.
The movie starred Neal McDonough as Ian Ross, owner of a well-planned compound, while Dawn Olivieri plays Ian’s devoutly Christian wife, Jenna, who wants to help as many desperate people as she can after a dirty bomb detonates off the coast of Los Angeles.
Jenna’s generosity and welcoming nature often put her at odds with Chase’s character, Jeff Eriksson, a highly-skilled security expert who is allowed to bring his wife, Tara (Kearran Giovanni), and their teen son Abe (Tyler Lofton) to the walled-off, self-sufficient community’s remote location.
The sequel series picks up with Ian in a coma and Jenna reaching out to Cain to help her wrest control of the Homestead back from Jeff, despite the fact the brothers were estranged at the time society broke down.
“There was this golden boy, Ian, who could do no wrong. He was a really true, good guy, and that’s where the whole Homestead came from. It’s him trying to do the right thing and trying to stock-pile these things and make it all work,” said Esten, who is also a country music star.
“And there’s that younger brother Cain,” he added. “Cain tried to be Ian for a long, long time, but it didn’t work. But, now that Ian’s gone, he feels that pressure. He feels that urge more than ever. So, I really like that part of it, as well. The character has never been the good guy.”
Showing Cain how to be a better man is his sister-in-law.
“You just see Jenna and you see who she is and the light that comes from her and the love and all that,” Esten said.
“He’s inspired by that to try. But, he also wants to protect her. So, he also knows the hard realities of this new world and that leads him down some dark paths. So, it’s the ying and the yang of those two that I like a whole lot in that relationship.”
For many of the characters on the show, their faith in a higher power serves as their true north and gives them something to aim at, even if they don’t always get there, Esten explained.
The faith-based aspect of the story raises the stakes for the characters.
“It’s one thing to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s another thing to survive with who you are and what your faith tells you you should be doing,” Esten said.
“That’s where the rubber hits the road. Yes, you can love your neighbor, but can you love your neighbor when there’s only so much resources? There’s only so much water. There’s always so much food, then how do you act? And where do you go with violence?” he added.
“All the things seemed pretty easy when the world was stable, but when it falls apart, that aspect of it challenges your faith.”
Esten said going from Nashville to Outer Banks was a tougher transition than moving from Outer Banks to Homestead.
“On Nashville, I played Deacon Claybourne and, although Deacon had his anti-hero parts, he had his addictions when he started off in the first couple of seasons, he was in a whole lot of fist fights and had a whole lot of darkness going on, BUT, in a similar way to Jenna, Rayna James (Connie Britton) was the light that he was drawn to pull him out of that darkness [on Nashville],” Esten recalled.
“It was a pretty light character by the time that Nashville finished,” he said. “Different than Cain, for sure. Cain doesn’t play guitar and sing.”
His character Ward Cameron was a straight-up villain on the teen treasure-hunting drama, Outer Banks.
“My friends, the Pate brothers, and Shannon Burke, the creators there, said, ‘Well, this guy’s going to be a normal father for about four episodes and then it’s going to go real sideways.’ And I’ll be damned, it went real sideways,” he laughed.
“That was a real thrill to play something that was so different. I didn’t want to ever play a ‘Deacon light,’ or like another slight version of Deacon. Ward is not that and Cain is not that. This is a third, entirely different thing, which I really love.”
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