There has been quite a shake-up behind the scenes of Hulu’s eight-part psychological drama series Saint X. The show had been filming in the Dominican Republic when production shut down last Friday after several crew members, including the key grip and members of the electric unit, walked off set. Deadline reports that this walk-off was done to protest the crew not being properly compensated for working overtime. Those crew members were let go and replaced – and they weren’t the only ones that had to be replaced. Even before the walk-off occurred, Saint X star Victoria Pedretti (The Haunting of Hill House) decided to leave the project over “creative differences”. Pedretti has quickly been replaced by Alycia Debnam-Carey of Fear the Walking Dead.
This move puts Debnam-Carey’s involvement with the next season of Fear the Walking Dead in question, as the production schedules of that series and Saint X overlap. Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva hears that Debnam-Carey might join the filming of Fear the Walking Dead season 8 “later in the shoot”.
Written by Leila Gerstein and based on a novel by Alexis Schaitkin, Saint X is
told via multiple timelines and perspectives. It’s a show about how a young woman’s mysterious death during an idyllic Caribbean vacation creates a traumatic ripple effect that eventually pulls her surviving sister into a dangerous pursuit of the truth.
Debnam-Carey is taking on the role of Emily, “a sharp and ambitious woman whose carefully constructed, seemingly perfect life begins to crumble.” She joins a cast that includes West Duchovny as Alison, “a smart and charismatic young woman who is beginning to look at her own privilege through a critical lens as she vacations with her family at a beautiful island resort”; Josh Bonzie as Clive ‘Gogo’ Richardson, “who we meet as a shy and clumsy but warm-hearted 20-year old, and again decades later as a hardened, changed man”; and Jayden Elijah as Edwin, “a handsome and magnetically charming employee at the island’s resort who immediately captures Alison’s attention. He harbors a healthy distrust of the rich white people he’s paid to serve and dreams of one day leaving the island for New York.”
Gerstein and Schaitkin are executive producing Saint X with the show’s director Dee Rees. Other executive producers include Stephen Williams, David Levine, and Zack Hayden of Anonymous Content, Aubrey Graham pka Drake, Adel “Future” Nur, and Jason Shrier of DreamCrew Entertainment, and Steve Pearlman.
What do you think of Saint X replacing Victoria Pedretti with Alycia Debnam-Carey? Let us know by leaving a comment below.