On the last day of the ATX TV Festival, there was a panel for the upcoming Syfy series, Surreal Estate, of which the first two episodes were made available to festival attendees. The panel, which was moderated by Jeannine Amber, featured stars Tim Rozon, who plays Luke Roman, and Sarah Levy, who plays Susan Ireland. 

On the series, Rozon and Levy play real estate specialists that sell the houses no one else wants to, because they are haunted or have some kind of supernatural energy. Each house has its own individual issues that they have to deal with. Having worked with each other in the past on Schitt’s Creek, they knew right away that they wanted to work with each other again on the series.

Rozon and Levy talked about some of the difficulties in not only working on the series during COVID, but also how auditioning was different. Rozon actually auditioned multiple times over Zoom. They were really lucky that the whole cast all got along well and had chemistry together, since they weren’t able to actually do chemistry reads with each other during the auditioning process.

They also discussed other challenges such as having a lot of technical jargon to remember, as well as working with animals on the show. Levy had a scene working with a crow that would not listen, and they both had to work with a dog. They also revealed that it wasn’t pork chops that was thrown at the dog, but rather tuna steaks.

They also explained how makeup and wardrobe really helps you get into character.

Both Roman and Ireland, who have a platonic friendship in the series, have complicated backstories that fans will get to see as the season progresses. They both have their own personal demons that they have to deal with, which are often a lot scarier than the supernatural demons on the series.

The series premieres July 16th on Syfy.