Posted in: Epix, TV | Tagged: epix, exclusive, from, interview, Ricky He

From: Ricky He Talks EPIX Series, Cast Chemistry & Channeling Empathy

Ricky He feels grateful for the opportunities he's had in the entertainment industry initially landing smaller parts on The Flash, Wayward Pines, and The Magicians. In recent years, he's landed more recurring TV roles in Trial & Error, A Million Little Things, and The Good Doctor and even some features in A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting (2020) and A Cinderella Story: Starstruck (2021). Now, the Chinese-Canadian actor landed his biggest role to date as part of an ensemble in the EPIX horror mystery drama From as Kenny. The series follows a mysterious city that imprisons everyone who enters as the residents struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy and seek a way out. They also have to survive the supernatural threats that exist from the surrounding forest. I spoke to He about the series' intrigue, the balanced storytelling and interpersonal relationships, bonding with the cast, and what he's learned in the industry.

"I don't have the luxury to kind of pick and choose my projects as much," He humbly admitted. "So I'm at that point where I'm auditioning a whole lot and waiting to hear back a whole lot and 'From' just out of pure luck and coincidence happened to be a project that I auditioned for and I read the first two episodes. The writing was just so good. The story stood out, and the character of Kenny was so interesting that it just worked out in that way where I had a love for this project, and then I also got to do the project." Like everything else the actor's tackled, he took his first foray into horror like everything else. "With every project and with every story, whether it be film or television, the bulk of the work for me is to find the relatability of the character, but to tell the story in an honest way," he explained. "With Kenny and with all the characters on 'From' and with the story itself, all the characters are so thorough and full of life. It's so intricate in the way they're written that it actually made the work really easy and so to kind of like fall into that world and to believe in the paranormal circumstances that we're in actually made it a lot easier because the writing is so good."

Aside from the series' star in Harold Perrineau, who plays Boyd Stevens, He compared the experience on set likening it to a certain HBO series. "It certainly feels like an ensemble piece because it is," he said. "I think that also lends to the authenticity of the story and how grounded it all feels because it truly is a town filled with all these people with all these ritualized back stories and histories outside the town and their respective roles inside. I think that it definitely feels like an ensemble piece from like the worst point of view, it definitely felt ensemble in that there are so many characters that it's not like any one of us, except maybe for Harold. It's not like any one of us were working the whole week, every week while we were shooting this. Quite a few of us had quite a few days off because your character might get a bit more of an arc in this episode, and then the next character gets a bit more of an arc in the next episode. It was spaced out in that way. In the same way that I imagine, like a lot of the 'Game of Thrones' cast must have experienced because each character kind of gets little scenes per episode, but they all lend to the journey of the story and their individual character arc."

Early on in the series, we find out Kenny is trying to tend for his father Bing-Qian Liu, played by Simon Sinn, who's dealing with dementia that obviously becomes more problematic in the confines of an isolated town with no way out. "I think there's something to be said about having someone that's so important to you and so paramount for you as a person that's going through your coming of age to go through seeing your role model essentially dissipate into somebody that doesn't know where they are, can't build their own lives, and can't physically and mentally deal with you," He said. "It's heartbreaking. So I think that's where I really related to Kenny. I can't imagine having to go through that with my own father and how void he must be feeling for a father figure."

He appreciates the family from within the cast especially the diverse range of ages. "So you find that 'cousin' or 'sibling' that you really click with. For me, I think I hung out mostly with Corteon Moore, who plays Ellis. We're just the closest in the age range and we share a lot of interests. So we were training a lot together for the summer." As far as the secret to his success, "I think that composure and just being at ease with yourself and learning to get really comfortable with who you are, even when you're extremely uncomfortable. I think composure is key. That goes for like life and career." From, which also stars Catalina Sandino Moreno, Eion Bailey, Hannah Charamy, Shaun Majumder, Chloe Van Landschoot, David Alpay, Elizabeth Saunders, Pegah Ghafoori, Avery Konrad, and Elizabeth Moy airs Sundays on EPIX.

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