Actor: 'Magicians' doesn't shun dark side

THE MAGICIANS
9 p.m. Monday, Syfy

Jason Ralph doesn't look like trouble, but troublesome characters know where to find him.

After playing the president's fresh-out-of-rehab son on CBS's Madam Secretary and a patent lawyer who wasn't exactly what he seemed on WGN's Manhattan, Ralph is stirring things up as a would-be wizard in The Magicians, which has its two-hour premiere Monday on Syfy.

Based on the best-selling trilogy by Lev Grossman, Syfy's version has taken enough liberties with the original text that Ralph's Quentin Coldwater is no longer introduced as a 17-year-old, but as a twentysomething entering grad school at the mysterious and magical Brakebills University.

He's still depressed, however.

"It's his big character flaw, in a way. It's the thing that is like constantly dragging him down," Ralph said during the Television Critics Association's meetings earlier this month.

"Self-sabotage is a big part of his life, and I think that comes from his depression. And that never stops. He's not a classic hero. He's not ever going to be the kind of hero that we want him to be. He's finding his own way through, and I think that's what makes him so relatable [and yet] there are a lot of people who hate Quentin Coldwater because of those things, because he has these flaws that he can't seem to get past. But I think it's his struggle that I relate to," the actor said.

Don't look for a magical cure for Quentin's condition.

"You would expect magic to be magical, but it turns out to be as complicated as everything else in life," Ralph said.

From Showtime's Homeland to FXX's acid-tinged rom-com You're the Worst, depictions of depression and other mental illnesses are finding their way into television in ways that help define characters but don't seem to limit them.

Asked whether he thought viewers were more open to seeing such characters, Ralph said: "I think we're more open to more taboo subjects these days. I feel like we're in a place as a society where it feels like the problems that exist need to be talked about. And this generation isn't afraid to talk about them, which is exciting, and I think it's important."

Many in Ralph's generation are also experiencing an extended adolescence, one reason that Magicians' executive producer Sera Gamble thinks aging up the book's characters from the beginning makes sense from an emotional perspective.

"When we were asking ourselves questions about coming-of-age stories, and when those important moments happen, a lot of them happen in your early 20s. I think that's very true of our culture today. So we get to do the really adult version of that," Gamble said.

Aging Quentin and his fellow Brakebills students was also a practical decision, Gamble said.

"We wanted to be true to the books and we wanted to find a way to tell a story that we know is going to span a good number of years," said Gamble, a former executive producer on CW's Supernatural, now in its 11th season.

"We didn't feel like that initial stage of development of Quentin and his friends suffered from aging him up. And it makes it much easier to continue to tell their story as they get into their late 20s."

A show set in a school for magic is bound to draw comparisons to Harry Potter, but Gamble doesn't believe it's "possible to have a Harry Potter problem," she said.

"Harry Potter and C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia are the touchstones of the story. And the point is that we're telling an adult story about a world in which destiny and fate and what you're supposed to be doing with your life and who is the Big Bad are complicated questions that don't have clear answers."

As for the legions of true believers, "my experience with the fans of Lev's books is that they're extraordinarily generous. They love the books and they want to see what it looks like on television," she said.

"I think there's a natural trepidation that comes when you love something and it's being passed into someone else's hands. Luckily, Lev has been helping us along the way, and he gives me the seal of approval and he calls me and tells me when he thinks there's a better way to do something. So, hopefully, the fans of his books will give us a chance."

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