Ahoy, Harper's Island enthusiasts! Last weekend, two stars of the upcoming TV thriller washed up on the sandy shores of Wondercon 2009, and they were nice enough to sit down with us for a chat about their 13-episode series. Hit the jump to read the full interview with Christopher Gorham (above middle) -- who plays Henry, a summer-frequenter to the island who decides to get married there and rejuvenate childhood memories -- and Elaine Cassidy (above left), who plays his best friend, Abby Mills, a former resident of the island. And please, when you read Cassidy's responses, be sure to imagine the most adorable little Irish accent possible. (Yes, her voice is even more precious than a golden-retriever puppy puréed with a baby.) And then ask yourself --who pray tell would want to kill such pure adorability?!

This is such an intriguing idea. It's like the scripted one-hour version of Survivor, but with a horror movie vibe to it…

CHRISTOPHER GORHAM: Exactly. That's a really good way to think about it. It's hard to describe sometimes especially when people think, "Well, what happens if it succeeds? How do you do a season 2?" If you just explain it's like Survivor, then suddenly it makes sense.

ELAINE CASSIDY: And also it's not our headache. [Laughs.] We don't have to worry about it.

GORHAM: It won't be a problem.

It was pretty clear up front that you'll do one season, and you may die at any point in that…

CASSIDY: Well, things, for me anyway, they weren't clear. Things got unfolded. But they were very crafty about how they played it out. Because, say for example, they said, "It's only a one-year deal," then your agent is going around going, "Oh, they're going to be free." And then people are thinking, "Something's up here." So they had to play it like it was just a normal TV deal, and that's the way that it came across to me. So that you just thought, "I'll find out as we go along," which is what we did, and then you realized, "Oh, I don't know how long I'm going to be on the show for. I don't know who the killer is. I don't know when and if I'm going to die." So they probably put a lot of energy into trying to cover up a lot of secrets.

In a way did you feel like you were making a film, because you knew this would have a definite ending?

GORHAM: Yeah. If you put it all together it would be a long movie. It's not a new format, but it's new to the States. And really refreshing, because we get to tell the whole story.

Can you talk about your characters?

CASSIDY: I play Abby Mills, who is from Harper's Island, just off the coast of Seattle. She hasn't been back to the island in seven years, because seven years ago there were six murders on the island by a guy called John Wakefield. Abby's mom was one of the people who were murdered. Her dad is the sheriff of the island, and he's the one who caught and shot John Whitefield; killed him and was kind of hailed a bit as a hero. But it's a small island, not a huge population, so it affected everyone; and her relationship with her dad broke down straightaway. He didn't know what to do with the loss of his wife, and then [had] a grieving child on top of it. So he thought the best thing was to send her to LA to stay with her grandmother. So at the age of eighteen she's sent away, just lost her mom, lost her dad, away from all her friends. The only person she stays in contact with is Henry. They've been best friends since they were kids. He really counsels her through the dark times, the tough times. And she's trying to make a new life for herself in LA. So coming back to Harper's Island is a really big deal because she hadn't been back in all this time, but it just shows the friendship that she has with Henry, because that's what brings her back. So she's got a lot of things to deal with for the first time.

GORHAM: Henry grew up in the suburbs of Seattle. His parents have a summer store on the island, so he spent the summers there. He met Abby when they were kids, and she's been his best friend since then. He fell in love with Trish Wellington when she started coming around with her dad. He used to work on her boat. They dated in high school, the broke up as they went off to college. He went and got his MBA, and then he reconnected with Trish. And when they decided to get married, they decided to have it on the island. And for Henry, it was his way of trying to reclaim his childhood, reclaim this place that has so many happy memories, that was spoiled by these murders. I think he is very sensitive to what Abby's going through, and maybe wants to make it a safe place for her again. So that's where things start happening.

The show starts off as one thing, and [executive producer] Jeffrey Bell] says by the fifth or sixth episode there's running and mud and blood and all that. Can you talk about where the show evolves?

GORHAM: I don't know how much we can talk about that…

CASSIDY: I think everything's in there. We can't say at what point and what comes first. But, you know, you have time because there's thirteen hours, as opposed to a film. There's so  many characters, [but] you do have time to get to know the characters. Some less so than others, because they go earlier.

GORHAM: It does start in a very happy place. It starts the week of this wedding, that everyone is thrilled to be apart of. It's being surrounded by friends and family, and we reconnected with people. So it starts in this great place, and for a while the guests at the wedding are not aware that horrible things have started to happen. Clearly once they become aware that horrible things are starting to happen, then the tone of the show will shift.

CASSIDY: Yeah, there's no turning back when that happens. It just builds and builds and builds.

Were you fans of the horror genre? Do you have any favorites?

GORHAM:  I'm not an aficionado or anything.

CASSIDY: I'm just a fan of anything that's good.

GORHAM: Yeah, anything that's good.

CASSIDY: Yeah, if it's told well. There's a load of awful horrors out there, but there's good ones as well.

GORHAM: When I found out I was going to get the show I started watching a lot of these movies, and a lot of them are really bad. But there are some really good ones. The Others is one of my favorites, and Elaine is in it. The Orphanage is one of the more recent ones that I just love.
What a great film. I have kids too, so that movie just slayed me. So yeah, I like it if it's good. And I was very happy with this show.

There's a suggestion of some weird supernatural thing that's going on. They sort of plant the idea. How much of that will show up in the show…

GORHAM: I think that things are pretty open in the beginning, and you're not sure exactly what's happening.

CASSIDY: And we've only seen one episode so we don't really know how they pieced it together, and what they pushed or what they held back.

GORHAM: We saw the promos for the show. There's a lot of options at the beginning, but I think essentially it comes down to, you've got these twenty-five people starting, and then you've got one killer.

CASSIDY: I suppose the conclusions we were jumping to at the beginning… Because we were the audience, because we didn't know when we'd go or if we'd go or who the killer was, some people did jump to supernatural theories – "I think it's aliens." And no one knew what was right and what was wrong. So you just have to watch and see.