Recently, Skyler Samuels and Amy Pietz , stars of the new ABC Family series THE NINE LIVES OF CHLOE KING too some time to discuss the show and what we can expect from it.
The Nine Lives of Chloe King follows Chloe King, a 16 year-old girl who finds out she’s part of an ancient race called the Mai, which has been hunted by human assassins for millennia. As if that was not unsettling enough, Chloe also discovers that she might be their only hope for survival.
Skyler Samuels plays the role of Chloe King, while Amy Pietz plays her single mother Meredith. The series premieres on June 14th at 9pm, following the season 2 premiere of Pretty Little Liars. It’s a lot of fun, so I encourage you to check it out, but until then find out what Skyler Samuels and Amy Pietz had to say about it.
How would you describe this show?
Skyler Samuels: I don’t think I could compare ‘Chloe King’ to any other TV show or movie. It’s kind of its own special package. In one hour you get drama. You get romance. You’ll laugh and it’ll leave you on the edge of your seat. So it’s got a little bit of everything and it’s the most perfect balance of all you could want. It’s its own thing.
Amy Pietz: I totally agree with you because I try to explain it my friends using something they can relate to. Sometimes I use ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ as an example. There’s a little ‘Gilmore Girls’ mixed in there, but she’s right, it’s really balanced. It has romance and action. The action was what turned me on the most about the show and it’s funny.
Skyler Samuels: And it’s fun because watching the action sequences, not only is it usually girls kicking butt, but it’s very inspirational for young girls to watch and feel empowered. It’s funny, too, because Chloe, my character, is always trying to bite off more than she can chew. She’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll take you,’ and then face to face with the villain she’s like, ‘Oh, you’re like a two hundred and sixty pound man who’s six four. Okay.’ I’m just this little scrawny thing that’s got to fight the bad guy. It’s funny because Chloe sometimes in the middle of the things will do funny things or make jokes while she fights. She’s always got a clever wit about her which makes the action portion fun and funny to watch.
Amy Pietz: It makes it pop more. I love how the female emphasis on the show is healthy. There are healthy relationships between her and her mother, between her and best friend. They’re not bitching. They’re not talking about money and sex all the time. It’s not ‘Gossip Girl’. It’s something that I’d allow my kid to watch and be proud. I’m proud of it.
Skyler Samuels: It’s a very realistic portrayal of what a sixteen year old girl would be experiencing. That might sound funny because there are these supernatural elements, but that’s kind of what makes this show work, the practical aspect. She’s trying to figure out who she is, how to talk to a boy, how to maintain a relationship with her two best friends, how to talk to her mom about dating or putting away her laundry, the usual things. At the same time she discovers that being a teenager just wasn’t enough. She’s got this added factor of these supernatural abilities that she has. Because of that I think it’s kind of a fantastic way to look at how a teenage girl develops, having to deal with these things and becoming a young woman in the process.
Amy Pietz: I saw the pilot with my at the time fifteen year old, now sixteen, stepdaughter and we’re forming a new relationship. I must say that playing Skyler’s fake mom on TV is helping to be a better step mom. Being a step mom is helping me be a better TV mom. I get the importance of these issues now. She was under the covers. She was scared by the show. She was thrilled at the ‘Twilight’ aspect. The two guys on our show are so hot.
Skyler Samuels: Yeah, they’re not too hard on the eyes.
What’s the mythology in the show?
Skyler Samuels: Without giving too much away, the basic mythology of the show comes down to an ancient Egyptian myth which more or less resembles felines, kind of like Sphinx and pharaohs and it’s got this ancient mythology. There’s more to it than that, but in the most relatable sense that’s what we’ve got going on. I’ve got claws.
Amy Pietz: Half cat, half human.
Skyler Samuels: Kind of, but it’s a very interesting thing because some of the powers are physical. I’m really fast and very quick to move, not only to run away from someone, but someone could be swinging a pole at my head and at the last second I can duck out and pounce on them. It’s super awesome, but I also have these emotional powers. Chloe is an empath. The difference between having empathy and being an empath is that if you’re empathetic you’re like, ‘I lost my cell phone,’ and we can be empathetic, but being empathic is the supernatural of experiencing empathy. Chloe finds herself drawn to these people, complete strangers because she suddenly gets these empathy hits where she looks at someone and feels terrified because she knows they’re terrified. It’s how she’s able to help everyone, because she’s discovering these random strangers that come into her life and she helps them, saves them.
Amy Pietz: And she’s the leader of a tribe called the Mai and this tribe of other half cat, half human beings are throughout the world and they look at her as the leader of this group which she doesn’t discover until her sixteenth birthday.
Does Chloe’s mom know about these powers?
Amy Pietz: No. I don’t know how long we’re going to draw it out, probably until the end of at least the first season.
Skyler Samuels: It’s hard for Chloe to tell her mom and the development of that storyline is to be continued and to be determined, but Chloe is adopted and her adopted father is no longer in the picture. He disappeared about ten years ago.
Amy Pietz: More of a single mom, ‘Gilmore Girls’ type thing.
Skyler Samuels: But I think Chloe is a little nervous to bring up this thing to her mom because it’s like, ‘How do I tell her? Maybe she won’t love me anymore. What does this mean? What does she know?’ Trying to figure out who she is throughout the show is her biggest struggle, how to embrace these new things and make it a part of her life and to feel comfortable with that. As the story develops she begins to own it more and I think sooner rather than later my mom is going to find out.
Amy Pietz: The father has been communicating with Chloe in very secretive ways.
The adopted father or biological?
Amy Pietz: Adopted, and I’m unaware of that. That’ll be revealed. All of it will unfold.
Is there any comedy in the fact that cats are not known for their empathy?
Skyler Samuels: There’s a lot of cat jokes. That’s why I say cat, but loosely cat-like because there are some differences. We poke fun at the fact that Chloe has these powers which is nice because a lot of these supernatural shows and movies take it so seriously. If you can’t make fun of yourself then why do that, why be there. Chloe’s best friends, Amy and Paul whom she’s never without, they take her to her fights, they go to school together, we’re the little trio; they always poke fun, like, ‘I can’t open this container, want to pop out a claw for me?’ They’re constantly teasing me about it, but I think that’s what makes it fun, that they accept it and they get it. The other thing, too, going back to the mythology of it is that the reason there’s this tension and the importance of Chloe being the uniter is that in older times, ancient times you could say, the Mai and humans, there was a partnership. They were loyal to one another and there was a strong relationship there. Throughout history this rivalry began to grow and it became this thing where humans were out to kill the Mai and they were out to kill the humans, but Chloe, when she discovers she has all these powers, doesn’t think it should be that way, that there shouldn’t be this division. Her goal is to get these two very different groups of people to exist simultaneously and happily. So it’s a big job for a sixteen year old girl. High school and world peace.
You worked on ‘The Gates’ which had supernatural elements. Did you bring that experience to this show?
Skyler Samuels: I wouldn’t say the supernatural factor of that show helped me with this because the character I played on ‘The Gates’ and Chloe are very different, but I will say that the experience of filming that whole series has been the most valuable experience ever. That was my first series and it was definitely a wonderful experience in how to work with special FX and being on sets for long hours and doing crazy things. This show is definitely that. We have a lot of special FX and we do a lot of even crazier things. It’s all good practice.
How do you prepare for a role like that? Did you have training?
Skyler Samuels: Before the pilot started, and I’d only read the pilot and I didn’t know what the rest of the season had in store, I knew that I had to run a lot and that there was a lot of physical fighting that I had to do. I was the most uncoordinated, un-athletic human being on the face of the planet. I couldn’t run two feet to save my life. Before the pilot started I got on the treadmill and I was running three miles a day everyday. I was practicing boxing, Pilates, strength training and I’ve kept up with it ever since and now it’s like second nature, but it was a complete physical overhaul to become Chloe King. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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