Tembi Locke Says She Felt Late Husband's Presence On 'From Scratch' Set

Warning: This post contains spoilers for "From Scratch."

Tembi Locke turned her "rare and beautiful" love story into a 2019 memoir, "From Scratch." After being chosen for a Reese's Book Club pick, the memoir was adapted into a Netflix show premiering on Oct. 21.

Given the personal nature of the story, Locke had a prominent role in the show's creation. In addition to executive producing, Locke co-wrote the series alongside her sister, the novelist Attica Locke.

"I can't imagine having it been done any other way," Tembi told TODAY. "The best thing I could offer was to be the guardian of the essence of the story. I knew we could change things. But if the storyline had to go left, then it still had to follow the emotional heartbeat of reality."

While the show filmed in California and Sicily, Locke said she didn't feel alone. Both she and her sister, speaking to TODAY, said they felt the presence of Locke's late husband, Saro Gullo.

Gullo died of cancer in 2012, with his wife and daughter Zoela surviving him. "From Scratch" tracks Gullo and Locke's early romance in Florence; their challenges navigating a long-distance, cross-cultural relationship; parenthood; and Saro's cancer diagnosis.

Characters' names are changed in the show for "psychic distance," but Zoe Saldana plays Amy Wheeler, a stand-in for Locke, and Eugenio Mastrandrea plays Lino Ortolano, Gullo's counterpart.

Gullo's presence, the Locke sisters said, came in the form of strange synchronicities.

Take Amy's apartment in Florence, where she first meets Lino. The apartment the Italian location scouts chose is located next to Locke's real apartment, much to Locke's surprise.

"It's literally the exact piazza I lived in. The place where Lino stands in the rain is the exact place where Saro stood. I didn't tell them, 'Go to this piazza and look," she said.

To make matters stranger, Sloane's bar in the show — where Lino and Amy meet through a mutual friend — is the bar that Gullo had owned with his friend, Locke said.

Cast members also had connections to Gullo.

Lucia Sardo, the Sicilian actor who plays Lino's mom Filomena, emerged from her set in L.A. to tell Locke she had just gotten off the phone with Gullo's childhood friend.

"We hadn't put it together," she said.

While auditioning on Zoom, Marcello Mazzarella, who plays the doctor in Sicily in Episode Eight, realized he had met Gullo in 1990 after seeing a hat like the ones Gullo used to wear.

"They had met by chance in Sicily. He was like, 'Wait a minute. I passed through his town and I met him. He said he had a Black wife from L.A. who was an actress in Hollywood," Tembi Locke said. "I was like, 'What is happening right now?"

Locke interpreted these coincidences as proof of Gullo's presence.

"These are the kind of ways that made me think, 'Saro's hand is very much at the spiritual level of orchestrating this. I don't know how any of this is happening.'"

Attica Locke had her own uncanny moment while shooting in Sicily for the last episode. After Gullo's death, Locke and her family traveled to Sicily, as the Wheelers do in the show.

Attica Locke said shooting a procession through the town was an "out of body experience" and "intensely emotional." Then, the woman who plays the mayor's mother called her "Attachina."

"That is a nickname Saro called me. I had no heard that in 10 years. I said, 'Why did you just say that?' And she said, 'I don't know. It just came to me," Attica Locke said. "It felt like he was right here."

The Locke sisters said that, throughout filming, there was a feeling of remembrance, with cast and crew thinking about mortality.

Attica Locke said one of the actors who played a doctor was struck that the show filmed in the same hospital where his mother had surgery.

"That's what we're talking about: An armada of angels. Everybody was having to contemplate loss in their life. For some people on set it was triggering. For others, it was healing," Attica Locke said.

To commemorate the mood, writers named side characters were named after people that people involved with the show had lost.

"David is named after Paul David Crump, a theater teacher in our high school that had a huge influence on our lives. Preston came from a loved one of one of our writers. Down to the guy selling a corn dog has the name tag Ryan, the uncle of our script coordinator," Attica Locke said.

"Every place we thought we could have a piece of people's angels, onscreen in some way, we tried to find a way to do it," Attica Locke said.

For Tembi Locke, the presence of these signs is fitting: For her, the show is about how love "transforms and transmutes, but doesn't leave us."

“I felt like we were creating a mosaic tapestry of the souls who had touched the lives of the people who had a hand in making the series,” Tembi Locke said — Gullo included.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com