Goyer also understood that adapting a story that was originally published in 1942 meant making notable changes to better reflect today’s world, like switching the story’s key heroes — Gaal, who is Dr. Seldon’s apprentice, and Salvor, a leader of the colony tasked with compiling important human knowledge — from white men to Black women. “I was conscious of the fact that there were a lot of people that were underrepresented in a lot of these sort of seminal works,” he explains. “I knew that I wanted this show to break through not just the hardcore fans, but to everyone — the people that haven’t read the books, the people that aren’t fans of science fiction. So that was the first decision I made.”
Goyer assembled a diverse writers’ room comprised of a majority number of women and people of color, as well as writers with different sexualities. “I just said, ‘I want us to get into it and debate, and I want the show to reflect the audience of today,” he shares.
Lou Llobell, who plays Gaal, was amazed by the auditions for Foundation ’s main characters, which featured a room full of women who looked just like her. “It was great because there were about nine women of color going up for Salvor and Gaal, respectively, and we all were super-supportive of each other even though we were all going up against each other for this role,” she shares. “It was so empowering to see all these women of color in this position where we could lift each other up and support each other and just wanted the best for each other. I’ve never been in a room like that, and I was just so grateful.”
Echoing Llobell’s sentiments, Leah Harvey, who plays Salvor, says they are glad to be involved with a project in which the leading roles are for Black women. “That’s almost unheard of,” they add. “Like, it’s just normal [in this show]… that we are human and we face problems, and our characters are just who they are because of who they are. That’s one of my favorite things about the representation in [ Foundation ].
Alfred Enoch plays Dr. Seldon’s adoptive son Raych, a character that was also canonically white in the books. The actor, who played Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter films (and of course co-starred in How to Get Away With Murder ), notes the importance of audiences being able to see themselves reflected on screen. “That’s something we haven’t always had, and that’s something I think we’re getting better at, so it’s nice to be part of a show that is moving in the right direction,” he says. “We’re talking [about] a story that is on a massive scale, different worlds, different kinds of people. You can’t build that and make everyone look the same. That don’t make no sense to me.”