The Girl in the Woods: Reed Diamond professes his love of the horror genre
By Mads Lennon
1428 Elm chatted with The Girl in the Woods star Reed Diamond about horror, his complex character and why he thinks people will love this show.
The Girl in the Woods hits Peacock this week just in time for Halloween. The new eight-episode YA supernatural drama series is based on a short film from Crypt TV, and Crypt TV also produces. It centers on a sleepy blue-collar mining town with a cult-like colony living in the recesses, secretly guarding a mysterious door deep in the woods that is the only thing standing between our world and horrifying creatures from beyond.
Carrie (Stefanie Scott) is a teenage monster slayer who stands guard over that door, but when strange things start happening in town, Carrie enlists the assistance of two other local teens to help her defend the locals from what’s behind that door.
Reed Diamond plays Hosea, Carrie’s father and the leader of the colony in the woods. Apart from The Girl in the Woods, Reed has started in dozens of films and television shows, including The Purge, Moneyball, Bosch, Designated Survivor, 13 Reasons Why and The Terror.
1428 Elm interview with The Girl in the Woods star Reed Diamond
1428 ELM: You’ve done so many different projects over the years. What attracted you to The Girl in the Woods?
REED DIAMOND: It embodies everything that my 13-year-old daughter is looking for in a television show. Its got incredibly compelling horror, and its also got beautiful, realistic LGBTQ+ representation. That’s all she wants. As soon as I read this pilot, I was like, “I’ve got to do this for my kid,” besides the fact that I just love this show and thought it was so beautifully written. That’s what attracted me to it. It’s the first show I’ve ever done that she has been beyond excited to watch. All eight scripts were brilliant.
When I get a show, and it’s a limited show like this where you have access to all of the scripts, I’ll probably read through them maybe five or six times and then start concentrating on my scenes. But on this one, and I told Casey [Jane Casey Modderno is the head writer] this, I have to tell you I’ve read all eight scripts every two days for probably, eight weeks? I read it over and over again. I said, “You’re such an amazing writer and every time I read it, I find something new.”
What I was so drawn to—yes, the character who is one of my favorite characters I’ve ever gotten to play—but I was so drawn to the relationship between the kids. It seemed so real. Everything about it had the full scope of authenticity to it. There are so many themes woven throughout these eight scripts that I found so compelling. I love the mythology of the horror.
As a fan of horror, I want the mythology to be unshakeable and deeply thought out, and this is. I mean the idea you’re guarding a portal to Hell, or whatever it is, because as a person I’m attracted to the ancient societies, whether it’s the Rosicrucians or the Illuminati, this idea that there is knowledge that people have, but not everyone can handle the truth. That was so compelling.
And I was drawn to [Hosea] as a man, but then just the themes on parenting. If you look at each parent group and how they parent, there are all of these different ideas about how you parent your child in these modern times. And then you’re dealing with the economic downturn in a blue-collar rustbelt-type town. So there are all these things going throughout that held my interest. I felt so lucky to be a part of it.