Dear Edward is a gripping new drama that will leave you captivated with each and every episode. The new Jason Katims show follows a 12-year-old boy named Edward, played by talented newcomer Colin O’Brien, who becomes the lone survivor of a plane crash. As Edwards and the victims’ families try to make sense of the tragedy, unexpected connections are formed. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Colin and Taylor Schilling, who plays Edward’s aunt Lacey, about how their characters will navigate their grief.
“I think for Lacey one of her strategies to cope is to try to control things and to try to make things look a certain way,” Taylor told HollywoodLife. “She’s so frustrated and sad and hanging on to a broken relationship, and she’s hanging on to ideas of what her life should look like, and that grabbing on and grasping tight is how she sort of navigates. When we meet Lacey, she’s already in a bit of some grief in her own motherhood journey. The story for her which I love is her learning to relax her grip on her idea of what life should look like and surf what actually is.”
Colin noted that Lacey’s need for control makes Edward “resent her” when he first comes to live with her after the plane crash. “That resentment makes it hard for Edward to connect with her, and throughout the story, as they both go through things together, they both kind of break out of their shells,” he continued. “Lacey lets go of certain ideas of what her life should be like, and Edward starts trusting other people and that really brings them together and makes that connection.”
Edward experiences an unimaginable tragedy at just 12 years old. While he survives the plane crash, he loses his parents and his brother. “He’s going through so many changes in his life and he’s coming of age and he’s a kid. It’s a lot to handle,” Colin said about how Edward copes in the aftermath. “Through the story, he learns to trust people around him to help him come to grips with what happened.”
The series also stars Connie Britton, Amy Forsyth, Anna Uzele, Audrey Corsa, Brittany S. Hall, Carter Hudson, Dario Ladani Sanchez, Douglas M. Griffin, Eva Ariel Binder, Idris DeBrand, Ivan Shaw, Jenna Qureshi, Khloe Bruno, and Maxwell Jenkins. The first 3 episodes of Dear Edward will premiere February 3 on Apple TV+.