‘The OA’ creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij talk about the series’ concept

“The OA” season 1 was known for featuring cases of near-death experience. The show co-creator and lead actress Brit Marling has explained how they were able to come up with the concept, as well as other themes of the show.

Marling has shared that it all started when she met a woman at a party. The woman has described to her how near-death experience was. She shared that she was really moved by that encounter and so “The OA” has been written.

“It just felt like she was humming at a different frequency from everybody else, like she had touched something at the other side,” Marling has shared. She said she feels passion and ferocity from a person who may know more than anybody else.

Marling’s co-creator, Zal Batmanglij, has also shared about his motivations for “The OA” season. He said there were a lot of things that were interesting by the time they have started with “The OA” season 1’s storyline.

Batmanglij shared that one of these things is on how to survive trauma. He said they find it interesting to feature how a person with a traumatic experience or has been traumatised will get herself back to society, which has been apparent in the way Prairie deals with the school shooting incident. “That’s something that fascinated us in our own lives, to a lesser degree, and then also when you read about these horrific experiences,” Batmanglij told Variety.

Another theme of “The OA” season 1 was the restlessness among teenage boys which has been shown at school before the shooting took place. As for this particular concept, Marling has shared that they spent some time travelling around the Midwest of the country to interact with kids.

She shared that they needed to sit in classrooms, talk to parents and teachers and hang out at their sports’ practice. These are some of their ways of learning what it’s like to be a young person right now. “We really wanted to make sure we weren’t writing about our experience of high school, which was so different and it’s influenced by all the John Hughes films we’ve taken in, Marling explained.

“The OA” stars Emory Cohen (Homer Roberts), Scott Wilson (Abel Johnson), Phyllis Smith (Elizabeth "Betty" Broderick-Allen), Alice Krige (Nancy Johnson) and Patrick Gibson (Steve Winchell) among others. The first season of the show aired in Australia on Netflix. Rotten Tomatoes has even given “The OA” season 1 72 percent critical approval rating. Air date for its second season is expected to be announced in the near future.