Tenants at The Drake, a luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, really need to start paying more attention to the fine print on their leases. Sure, the address is great, but signing away your soul is a long-term commitment that’s difficult to negotiate your way out of on ABC’s new supernatural drama, “666 Park Avenue.”
The Drake owner Gavin Doran and his wife, Olivia, take special interest in the aspirations of their tenants, particularly those of new building managers Henry Martin and his girlfriend, Jane Van Veen, who have hopes for careers in politics and architecture, respectively. It’s no coincidence that as Henry and Jane get closer to the Dorans, the more terrible things they begin to witness. Before evil forces evict them, meet the new neighbors.
Henry Martin
Co-manager of The Drake
Played by Dave Annable
Freshly transplanted from the Midwest, Henry and Jane’s eagerness for the promise of New York City may be their downfall.
“There’s a reason why they moved to New York, and that’s their ambition,” Annable says. “And I think that Henry and Gavin, their storylines will intertwine. Gavin takes Henry under his wing. I’m very curious to see how that’s going to affect Henry and Jane’s relationship over the course of the season.”
Gavin Doran
Owner of The Drake
Played by Terry O’Quinn
Is Gavin a representation of the devil? O’Quinn — who has played several bad guys onscreen — has an interesting take on this self-interested, wicked character.
“My theory is that Gavin’s kind of a sharecropper on the plantation of evil,” the actor says. “He plants the seeds. He only gets half the harvest. He has to feed some back to the building, but he gets his share and he uses people to his own ends.”
Olivia Doran High-society wife of Gavin
Played by Vanessa Williams
When Williams first read the “666 Park Avenue” script, she immediately likened the wealthy real estate icon Gavin to notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.
“[The Madoffs] had … a great amount of wealth. And then we all saw … how they created their empire.”
As for the well-appointed Olivia, Williams says she views her character as “kind of like a mafia wife, where [Gavin] has supreme power. She is aware of what goes on at The Drake.”
Jane Van Veen Co-manager of The Drake
Played by Rachael Taylor
Taylor says the show strives to keep all of the scary supernatural stuff as grounded as possible.
“If you have an instinct that something is a little bit creepy deepy, you will rationally try and resist that as long as you can, because no one wants to believe that there’s a ghost in their basement,” she says. “And at one point I watch my character really start believing that there is something wrong with this building. I’m very intrigued [by that].”
