Wynonna Earp: Tales from Purgatory | Cast and Creator Talk Differences from Show (NYCC)

After four seasons on TV and a movie that released last month, Wynonna Earp had even more to offer its fans in late October, with the release of the Wynonna Earp: Tales from Purgatory Audible series.

The six-episode anthology audio series takes the characters and world fans know and love from the show and streaming movie, and offer a new way to engage with the stories it is full of.

The total runtime is about four hours long, and it tells stories from across the Wynonna Earp timeline, jumping around to offer as wide a breadth of new content as possible.

Wynonna Earp Creator and Cast on Audible Anthology Development

Speaking with The Direct and others at a New York Comic Con roundtable, the cast and creator of Wynonna Earp offered some insight into what went into making the new Wynonna Earp: Tales from Purgatory Audible series, and what returning to the fan-favorite franchise in this new format was like.

Creator Emily Andras said that the initial idea came because "they just can't kill this thing [Wynonna Earp] with fire." The project was a testament to the show's "passionate fan base," (called the Earpers) who continued to engage with the franchise and its characters and were "always clamoring for more."

Andras explained that doing an anthology — one that filled in some of the gaps the show left open — allowed for her to really appeal to those fans, because as much as they are always asking for more, "they will also tell you what you missed:"

"Look, when you have a passionate fan base, they are always clamoring for more, but they will also tell you what you missed, what story you didn't tell."

At first, she found the shift from writing for TV to writing for Audible to be "intimidating," as she had to adjust from her usual "show, don't tell" style of writing to "tell, don't show" for the anthology:

"I think from a writing perspective, it was incredibly intimidating, right? Like, the truth about TV is it's Show, don't tell. And this is literally tell, don't show, right? Which is hard."

Andras thinks that part of why it all worked so well in the end was because the "cast is close" and there is a level of "trust that is required" in developing something like Wynonna Earp: Tales from Purgatory:

"I think it's something we maybe couldn't have done in first season. I think the trust that was required to all get together in our sweat pads and kind of play off one another could only happen with a cast is close who trusts each other so much."

Creating these mini-episodes was a very collaborative process, as Andras explained. She "had never done audio storytelling before," so brought in KC Wayland to direct and help take this world and move it into the audio format. But, Wayland also knew when to step back and give the actors who "who knew their characters" inside and out "a chance to play:"

"I know what I'm good at. I had never done audio storytelling before, so we had an incredible director named KC Wayland .... He was such- had such a light touch with the actors. Like, these are people who knew their characters, right? This wasn't, like, a brand new project. So he was very careful to kind of get out of the way and always give them ... a chance to play a chance to improv, but then still make sure he got what we needed."

And while Andras felt new to it this time, she teased that if this were to ever happen again, "next time" she would probably do a bit more:

"It's like a muscle, right? He [Wayland] had it trained, and I definitely didn't, but maybe next time I will."

Tim Rozon (Doc Holliday) not only voiced his character but also wrote one of the episodes. He explained that throughout filming on the original show, he had "always wanted to do something on a train," but that the budget would not allow it.

With Audible, though, Rozon got the chance to bring that story "that we wouldn't be able to film budget-wise" to life:

"I always wanted to do something on a train, like, 'We need a big train fight thing, you know?' And Emily [Andras] would be like ... 'We can't even get Pop-Tarts on the craft table. And you want a train?" ... And then this came along, and then she was gracious enough, you know, to call me and say, 'Would you be interested in maybe co-writing one of the things? I'm bringing in some people.' ... So, yeah, I wanted to try and bring in some something action-packed, that we wouldn't be able to film budget-wise."

Like Andras, Rozon had to adjust to a style of writing where "you need to explain to the audience what's happening without telling them directly over the head:"

"it's also a different style of writing for Audible because you need to explain to the audience what's happening without telling them directly over the head what's happening. Because nobody wants to hear 'We're running on top of a train,' you know what I mean? But we need to let the audience know we're running on top of a train. There's a demon chasing us. So it was a very interesting way of writing, but it was great."

He also particularly enjoyed getting to see Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp) reading the words he wrote, which he called " a once-in-a-lifetime experience:"

"And then I got to see Melanie say my lines, you know, it was like a once in a lifetime experience. It was very cool."

Revisiting Wynonna Earp in a Third Format

The Wynonna Earp team also discussed what it was like to engage with these characters over time, both in the time that has passed in canon and throughout four TV seasons and a 2024 movie.

Scrofano said that deciding to work with Audible on Wynonna Earp: Tales from Purgatory was "a no-brainer" to her, mainly because she "missed" the behind-the-scenes team and "missed Wynonna:"

"I missed Wynonna. She's just been such a gift to play. You're never bored when you play her in any format. So I just missed her and them [the cast and creative team] and the love and then, you know, obviously, with the show ending when it did, we kind of were wondering if it was over. And then this opportunity came up, and it just seemed so perfect, because it would fit into our schedules. Everybody would be able to do it. It was like a no-brainer."

Rozon was just excited to keep having "fun" with the character of Doc Holliday that he loves so much. He summed it up by saying that if he "can't have fun playing undead space cowboys, then there's no hope for [him]:"

"It's literally the dream come true ... That's why I got into being an actor, to be honest. If I can't have fun playing undead space cowboys, then there's no hope for me."

Katherine Barrell (Nicole Haught) said that through 10 years with this character, she has seen Nicole gain more "confidence." She noted that she and her character have "grown alongside each other," something she called "very rare:"

"She's just grown in confidence as I've grown as a person too, like we've kind of grown up together, and that's really beautiful. As you know, female performer, as an actor, as somebody you know, who started as a deputy and graduated to Sheriff like Nicole did. It's really we've we've grown alongside each other, which is which you never get to do with many characters. It's very rare. I'm very grateful.

She explained that unlike filming, she felt "so much freer as an actor to play and take risks" for Audible than ever before, because she did not feel the same need to be cognizant of physical things. Barrell said that "it was so nice to not be self-conscious:"

"I have moments on set where I'm like, 'I have hands. What do I do with my hands?' Like, I live with my hands every day. But for some reason, when you're filming, all of a sudden, you're, like, hyper-aware of these things that you don't think about it all in day-to-day life. So not having that weight of that, I just I feel like I was so much freer as an actor to play and take risks and, yeah, just it felt free. It was so nice to not be self-conscious."

Meanwhile, Scrofano explored parts of the character of Wynonna that she had never gotten to before, thanks to being in an audio-only medium. She talked about how Wynonna had never been "an amazing listener" in the show and that the Audible project allowed her to explore that a little:

"I remember Wynonna, listening to Doc tell a story, and I guess I never thought of Wynonna as a big listener ... She wasn't an amazing listener. She did have her little ADHD moments but ... I've never had the pleasure of letting Wynonna give someone else the chance to tell their story, I guess. And that was really fun. It was fun to be the passenger in the car."

Barrell said that having done the movie helped, because they recorded for Audible about "six weeks" after the movie finished filming, so they "were in it." Andras found that "once [they] got going" when recording, it felt just like being back filming on set:

"We just all know the show in our bones so much that I think there was a little bit of tentativeness at the beginning, like, 'Is this gonna feel like the show or something different?' But once we got going, no, it was the same-old, same-old. They almost forgot they weren't being filmed."

Wynonna Earp: Tales from Purgatory is available now on Audible.