In City on Fire, the latest Apple TV Plus series to hit the streamer, New York is a city full of secrets. The show is a web of seemingly unrelated but interconnected stories that stretch from New York’s upper-class Upper East Side to the downtown neighborhoods of the punk band members. The figure at the center of this web, bringing everyone together, is Sam Young, played by Chase Swee Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies), a freshman at New York University whose shooting on a summer night in Central Park sets off the snowy events of the series.
For Wonders, Sam was a dream role. “It’s such a fascinating story and there are so many points of reference to it, but Sam in particular – her character is so magnetic and so multi-layered,” she says. “The dream was to cosplay as a cool, confident and free-spirited girl.”
However, the more we learn about Sam – from her affair with a married man to her involvement in a series of mysterious fires – the more possible motives can be attributed to her tragic attack. “What drives the drama of the show is that Sam has all these secrets because she’s this social chameleon who works her way into all these different scenes,” Wanders explains.
“She is able to see this story spread and absorb all this information. She sits on so many unanswered questions that are about to come to the surface and the answers begin to form – as soon as they do, then she gets shot. This bubbling tension was really fun to play and really exciting. It makes the flashbacks all the more satisfying and harrowing.”
Sam’s story is most closely related to that of Charlie, played by Wyatt Oleff, a high school senior from Sam’s hometown on Long Island. “Charlie is such a fun character,” says Oleff, who has previously appeared on Netflix’s It and I Am Not Okay With This. “He’s such a great role to play, he has such a beautiful arc, and to be able to do that in eight episodes is something I’ve never done before.”
This arc comes courtesy of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the brains behind legendary pieces of teen TV canon like The OC and Gossip Girl. “Josh and Stephanie [are] people who know how to make a show that’s really in the conversation of the industry,” says Xavier Clyde, who plays Mercer, the man who first finds Sam after she’s been shot, while Wonders tells us the pair “instantly” her has drawn for the project. “They know their business. I grew up on Gossip Girl and The OC, so there was so much trust right from the start, knowing these people knew exactly what they were doing,” she says, while Nico Tortorella, who plays troubled artist William, claims that City of Fire is “the duo’s best work to date. It’s definitely their most elevated version of what they do best.”
“They’re the best kind of tag team for this kind of project,” Wanders continues. “And just knowing the sheer scope of that story and then being able to keep the whole timeline straight, top to bottom, just to have that hermetic sense of the story and that complex puzzle, was incredible.”
Two other pieces of the City on Fire puzzle are Regan (Girls and Sex Education’s Jemima Kirk), a wealthy Upper East Sider, and her husband Keith (Succession’s Ashley Zuckerman). “I loved that each of the characters was dealing with some deep personal conflict at the beginning of the show, and there’s a question of whether they can reveal their secrets and then whether they can heal from that,” says Zuckerman. “It makes for great scenes where everything is very busy and everything is very highly charged, and it’s a very nice thing to play.”
“It was really different from anything I’ve ever done,” Kirke adds. “Most of the stuff I’ve done is quite nuanced and a bit polarizing or slower or more like a think piece or a broad comedy. I’ve never played a character in a story like this before, in a thriller, a story where something is always happening and the character is constantly dealing with something. There is no worldly moment.”
Burning City is based on Garth Risk Hallberg’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name. While many plot points have remained the same between page and screen, one key difference is the time period: Holberg’s novel is set in the 1970s, while the series is set in 2003.
“Although the two periods coincide in that it was a time of great upheaval and turmoil, and both were periods of rapid change, they may have thought that this was a time that was more accessible to audiences today, that we could we see the seeds being planted then of our lives now,” explains Zuckerman. “It’s a pre-technology, post-9/11 moment, it’s a black hole of creativity, and it’s a moment when everything was going to change. It was really wise to to tap into that moment and tell the story for the people who are trying to connect.”
“It’s kind of an intact period of time in television as a period piece, and especially after 9/11, I think there’s just this huge sense of solidarity that happened with New York,” Wanders adds. The attack on the Twin Towers looms large over Charlie, who lost his father on 9/11. He first meets Sam while browsing a record store in town after a therapy session, and she offers him a welcome distraction. “When Charlie lost his father, he started drifting and had no direction or anyone to push him. He had his mother, but he felt like his mother didn’t really understand what he was going through,” Olef says.
“When Sam finds it, it feels like someone is finally giving him a sense of belonging, purpose and direction. She’s his mentor and he has someone who’s confident and will help ground him because he just doesn’t know where he wants to go So for him it’s a way to have someone else in his life to care about and giving him all that love without having to think about [his grief] already.”
However, the relationship goes both ways. “Charlie is a way for Sam to find a home, which I think in offset parades is something different,” says Wanders. “Sam says, ‘I’ll be your teacher.’ I’ll show you the ropes.” But as you move forward, you discover something truly beautiful. It’s a classic reversal of Sam needing Charlie just as much as Charlie needs Sam, and she needs someone to care for her just as much as he does.”
The first three episodes of City on Fire are now on Apple TV Plus, with subsequent episodes coming out every Friday. For more viewing inspiration, fill out your watchlist with our picks for the best new TV shows in 2023 and beyond.