How would you react to the end of the world? This is the issue that underlies, in the opinion of the actors Gabriel Byrne and Léa Drucker , the latest television adaptation of The War of the Worlds . Fox Networks Group and Canal Plus have teamed up to bring the alien invasion of HG Wells to present-day Europe in this eight-episode series that debuts in Spain on October 28 at 10:55 p.m. on Fox.

"None of us know how I would respond to extreme circumstances and this is what I find interesting about my character: he is totally in conflict," says EL MUNDO Byrne, an Irish actor whose works include films such as usual Suspects or, more recently, the Vikings series . "Would you be a hero, a coward or something in the middle ? If you have a plane crash, you survive and manage to get out, but there are people inside the plane, would you go back inside to try to save them or move on?", The interpreter questions, 69 years.

The war of the worlds by Howard Overman , writer of Misfits and author of this version, begins when a group of astronomers detect a transmission from another galaxy, irrefutable proof of the existence of intelligent life outside the Earth. In a matter of days, the aliens will annihilate our civilization without explanation, leaving the survivors with more questions: who are these invaders and why are they determined to destroy us?

"The function of any story about war is not only to entertain, but to make people think about the world we live in and ask who we are, where we are going and what are the threats we face in today's world," he says. Byrne, which builds bridges between the 1897 science fiction story and our reality. "The aliens are a symbol, a metaphor for the great dangers we face: the environmental threat, the nuclear threat" or the ethnic problems, axis of this version according to Overman.

" Racial conflicts are nothing new . And I think they are an essentially moral or philosophical question about what is the nature of the human being. Because we are, in essence, violent creatures, but we are also innocent. We have progressed technologically, but have we progressed in our ability to live with each other? Is it man who causes his own destruction? "Byrne continues to reflect with more questions than answers. "The First World War was going to be the war that would end the wars and shortly after we had the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War. The war seems to be part of Humanity. It seems that the desire to dominate is a force that motivates behavior human, "sentence.

In this sense, Drucker, a 47-year-old French actress known for her work in the Office of Infiltrators series, says that this alien invasion "puts everything in a new perspective because we are attacked by something that is above human nature." And he compares this intergalactic conflict with our recent history by saying: "It is a colonization that comes from outer space. But colonization is something that has happened in our world in many countries ."

For Byrne, one of the successes of this War of the Worlds is its configuration as an absorbent thriller . "There is no time to stop and examine what is happening in a profound way. But, in addition, I think this series presents the emotional side of the characters very well: you really see human beings facing a great danger," he says.

Drucker, meanwhile, highlights the terrifying atmosphere that manages to create. "Of course, there is action and special effects , but fear arises from things you really don't see," such as the extraterrestrial threat.

Another war in another world

This is not the only recent adaptation of War of the Worlds. On October 11, Movistar premiered a homonymous miniseries of the BBC that, unlike this version, takes place in England in the early twentieth century that portrays the novel.

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