Do Siren’s stars Eline Powell and Alex Roe actually believe in mermaids?

On Freeform’s Siren, Ben and Ryn discover what happens when mermaids come to land, but do actors Alex Roe and Eline Powell actually believe in mermaids? Their answers might surprise you.

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On Freeform’s Siren, a mermaid is forced to come onto land after her sister is kidnapped in the water. Navigating the town of Bristol Cove, mermaid Ryn must learn to put some trust into humans she meets along the way in order to get help with her quest.

We caught up with actors Eline Powell and Alex Roe last weekend at WonderCon to learn more about who they play on Siren and how their experiences with mermaids have maybe changed their own personal views on the existence of these ancient mythological creatures and their supernatural abilities.

When we first meet Ben on the series, we learn that he’s someone who cares about helping creatures in the sea, but he might be in a little over his head when he stumbles across Ryn in his town. “Ben is a marine biologist; he’s got quite an altruistic view on the world. He’s a conservationist and his family are like the business people of the town. Fishing is the way that they make money, and he’s kind of like the rebel against them in some ways,” Roe explained. “He discovers this young girl and assumes she’s maybe on drugs or something like that because she’s pretty strange. She turns out to be a mermaid, and kind of gets in his head a little bit.”

Noting the title of the show as “Siren“, Roe described how Ben is affected by the supernatural mysteries surrounding the mermaids. “My character is kind of the exploration of what the siren song does — how it makes  people act and drives people a little crazy — so that’s kind of fun for me to play.”

“Ryn is a mermaid. She’s never been on land before so she’s very… odd to an outsider. She’s a top level predator, but at a complete disadvantage in the sense that this body is new, being on land is new, and on top of that, her sister just got kidnapped. So she doesn’t know anything about this world and she has a mission,” Powell said. “She has to trust some people, but so far they haven’t shown much trustworthiness. So that’s where Ben is quite a major shift in her experience of land, and the story unfolds.”

On Siren, mermaids are depicted in a new way and have the ability to transition onto land. Though they are mythological creatures, the new Freeform series explores the idea of bringing mermaids into the fishing town of Bristol Cove. But we were curious to know whether Powell and Roe actually believe in the existence of these famous sea creatures… and they’re not ruling out the possibility.

“I don’t know if they would be the way we imagine it, but there is a hint of this — the way species evolve on the water — a lot of mammals have very similar traits, and it’s because the water forces them to look a certain way,” Powell said. “So has there ever been a branch of human species that have gone in there and ended up looking more aquatic than we can imagine? Why not? The sea wipes out so much evidence of those things, especially if they went deep. I’m not claiming that there is, but why not? We don’t know; there’s so much we don’t know. I’m open-minded to it.”

“There’s a line in the pilot that’s a true line that 95 percent of the oceans are unexplored. Realizing that we kind of know less about our oceans on our own planet than we know about space,” Roe said. “A lot of people are pretty sure that an alien life exists, and I think there’s something really intriguing about this unexplored depth of the ocean. Why not, mermaids?”

So with Ryn learning how to be a human, will we get to see more of Ben discovering what life is like in the sea? “Potentially,” Roe said. “I probably can’t reveal too much, but I definitely had to learn how to hold my breath for a long time.” Roe also teased that towards the end of the season, “a fair bit happens at sea. So that will be also interesting and quite thrilling.”

“A lot of it is at the moment on land,” Powell shared, “but it’s a meeting of species. It’s more of mermaids seeing how humans are and learning from that. I’d say that’s more the majority of the experience for now.”

Next: Preview Ryn on land in the Siren premiere

Watch the special 2-hour Siren premiere tonight on Freeform starting at 8/7c, with new episodes very Thursday.