Going Viral

The CW, home of the young and (frequently) shirtless, is growing up.

The network known for shows about teen vampires, glam high-schoolers and genetically altered super-humans makes the leap to adult thriller territory with Containment, a series about a contagious — and deadly — viral outbreak.

"At its core, this is a show about survival, a group of people who, on an ordinary day, have to figure out how to cope with crisis," says showrunner, writer and executive producer Julie Plec.

A fan of virus movies like Contagion and Outbreak, Plec wrote the pilot while running the other two CW shows she has in production, The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. (Matt Corman and Chris Ord are also executive producers and showrunners on Containment.)

The new show, premiering April 19, opens with a lightning-fast teaser that plunges viewers into day 15 of the outbreak, then flashes back to how it all began. Shot in hand-held docudrama style, it juggles multiple story lines involving characters in a quarantined section of Atlanta, intercut with those on the outside trying to help.

"Every episode hinges on a new reveal that takes us a little bit deeper into the mystery as to how this all happened and who's behind it," Plec says. Containment is adapted from a Belgian series, Cordon. Warner Bros. Television bought the rights and is producing the 13 episodes with Plec's My So-Called Company.

British actor David Gyasi (Interstellar, Cloud Atlas) anchors the series as police chief Lex Carnahan, who navigates moral dilemmas while trying to help his girlfriend, Jana (Christina Moses), and fellow officer and best friend Jake (Chris Wood), who are trapped in the no-go zone.

"The attempt to do the right thing is what really interested me about Lex," says Gyasi, who researched the role with the help of an Atlanta police sergeant. He likens his character to a swimming duck: "Above the water, there's a smoothness and a calm exterior, but underneath his feet are churning — there's this turmoil over what to do."

Gyasi flew from London to L.A. for his audition, and straight off the plane, went to read for Plec and director David Nutter. He was pleased to learn that the competition for the role had been whittled down to him and a few white actors.

"When I see that, I go, 'Wow — they've written a good character and are just trying to match up the right actor to that character,'" Gyasi says. "That's what we need to be moving toward."