Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse Speak on Finding the Dream Team for ‘The Strain’

The Strain is likely all your sci-fi friends are talking about this morning. After last night’s premiere of FX, fans immediately took to Twitter proclaiming their love for the new series. Many fans speaking about what they believed was to come based on the book trilogy – even though show creator Guillermo del Toro and executive producer Carlton Cuse said there will be a number of changes from the book.

The writing for the show is a different beast to be tackled, and Cuse even mentioned in a recent interview with FanBolt that the job of putting together a writing staff is a bit like assembling an orchestra.

“You need to find people who have different voices but who all can harmonize together and create a single sound. So, first and foremost, I was very happy that Chuck Hogan wanted to engage not just as the co-writer of the books but also as a writer on the show.” Cuse explained. “And so having Chuck on staff has been a hugely wonderful thing. I hired these two wonderful writers from Battlestar Galactica, David Weddle and Brad Thompson, and then I hired Regina Corrado, who was on Deadwood and Sons of Anarchy, and Jennifer Hutchinson, who was on Breaking Bad, and a wonderful young writer named Jason Brigg Gibson.”

With such a variety of backgrounds, the writing team really became a dream team for Cuse and del Toro to work with. “We had this wonderful combination of different voices and writers with different interests, all of whom I think brought something really unique to the very complicated and arduous process of adapting a book into a brand new creation as a show.” Cuse continued. “And there’s lots of new stuff in the show, there are new characters in the show, there are lots of new situations, and each of these writers really contributed to that process.”

“I think that in this I completely rely on Carlton. When the charge of a show runner is applied, you know who’s running the show, and Carlton has the experience and the knowledge and the capacity to cast the writers’ room in the way that he thinks is appropriate for the show.” del Toro said. “And we jibe, we veto ideas and so forth, but ultimately he’s the arbiter of how that part of the show goes and the direction the show takes, and who gets to participate as a writer. I think we have a great sampler of different disciplines and different points of view into the story that he needs to orchestrate into something seamless.”

Between the writers, del Toro and Cuse, it’s not hard to argue that there is a dream team behind The Strain. Did you love last night’s premiere as much as we did? Sound off with your thoughts below!