Ted Sutherland, Hal Cumpston & Nicolas Cantu talk season 2 of World Beyond.
Ted Sutherland portrays resident con-man and pickpocket, Percy Delmado in The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Add in Nicolas Cantu as Elton Ortiz, and Hal Cumpston as Silas Plaskett, and you’ve got World Beyond’s own boys club.
The last time I spoke to Nicolas, he was a few inches shorter (a throwback to his line in season one), and this is the first time I got to speak to Hal and Ted. They were all gracious and hilarious. I just call them my boys, now.
KATIE HARDEN: DID SILAS EVER SEE HIS MOM AGAIN? AFTER HE HAD TO KILL HIS FATHER AS AN EMPTY, WHY DO YOU THINK SHE ABANDONED HIM IF HIS FATHER WAS ALREADY DEAD?
HAL CUMPSTON: He wasn’t the best at cleaning up after himself. That wasn’t anything more important than the other stuff. Yeah, she’s freaked out, and she has her own things going on.
HC: And that’s pretty rough on Silas. That’s meant to be his mom. She just doesn’t understand that it was pretty cool he was able to kill this zombie version of his dad and save her. She’s obviously caught in some sort of emotional loop
WAS IT HARD FOR HIM TO KILL THE EMPTY IN THE JUNKYARD OR WAS IT JUST SOMETHING HE KNEW HE HAD TO DO?
HC: I think the situation has just made Silas have to mature quite quickly, but maybe that is also because there was a year in-between shooting.
HC: But it makes sense that he’s just had to mature immediately like that, by the time he’s arrested by the CRM and now helping them kill zombies. I think Silas realizes he’s just going to have to get to the job because there’s not a lot of wiggle room for him.
HC: It was still disgusting, which was pretty funny to play because we had all of the smoke firing (fireworks), and I was watching them all go around and pretend to kill walkers (empties.). That does a lot.
“I like the idea that Silas is a bit sassy, taking it in. Being, like, gross, but then getting on with it. ” – Cumpston on Silas’s sense of duty.
HC: How long in a two-season series can my character be scared of killing walkers?
WAS SILAS JAILED IN THE CRM BEFORE JENNIFER CALLED IN THE FAVOR?
HC: I don’t know. I mean, like I can make it up in my own head. It sort of made sense for me that he’s been arrested and then has to pull a few strings. But honestly, it was probably just an extremely confusing process, whatever it was.
THE IRONY IS THAT JENNIFER WAS RAISED BY HER UNCLE AND SHE RELUCTANTLY HAD TO KILL PERCY’S, DO YOU THINK HE CAN LISTEN TO SILAS’S WORDS AND FORGIVE HER? YES, PERCY. WE SAW THAT TRIGGER FINGER IN THE TRAILER.
TED SUTHERLAND: Is that irony? (sarcasm)
KH: I don’t know… (sarcasm)
TS: Yeah. I think it’ll be interesting to see that journey. I think he’s an emotional young man. And we’ll see…
KH: A friend of mine wants a Huck and Percy spin-off show, just putting that out there.
NICOLAS CANTU: Make it happen, Ted!
TS: I’ll get on the phone right now. With the secretary.
WHERE WAS PERCY FROM? I KNOW HE AND TONY WERE HOPPING FROM VEGAS.
TS: That’s such a good question. I don’t have an answer for you.
WHAT DID PERCY WANT TO BE AS A KID?
TS: I think he was always interested in what his uncle was doing, but I don’t think he saw the best side of it.
THERE NEEDS TO BE A BAND NAMED PERCY IN A WAGON.
NC: Percy in a wagon. Let’s improvise a Percy in a Wagon song right now. I’ll be the lead guitar person…
(Crickets. Good try, Nicolas.)
ELTON HAS GROWN TWO INCHES TALLER, JUST LIKE HE WANTED. HOW DOES HE ADAPT TO HIS NEW SURROUNDINGS IN NEW YORK VS. NEBRASKA?
NC: Uh, I think he’s, it’s all the forests. I guess. It’s all just like the woods. I don’t know. I wish we got into New York City though. That would have been a fun environment to explore. But really, it was just all the woods and we were filming in Richmond, too. So it was just like, oh, yeah, right. Where are these sticks?
NC: Let’s move the other sticks over here on the other side of town. But I guess there are a lot more empties in New York I guess because I kill a lot more this season!
WILL ELTON WRITE HIS OWN MEMOIR?
NC: I’d like to think so. Elton’s definitely a writer. He was just trying to finish his mom’s. But he can’t really take credit for that. So I think he needs to write his own. About what? I don’t know.
NC: I feel like his mom had all the points that he was trying to hit. So Right. Maybe he’ll write a cookbook. I don’t know. We’ll try to do something else just to differentiate himself in the market of the literature in the apocalypse.
HC: Now that I would read.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT SILAS AND PERCY GOT INTO A FIGHT THAT INITIATED THAT GRUESOME EVENT? BECAUSE IT SOUNDS LIKE THEY WERE FIGHTING OVER IRIS. I’M ASSUMING SILAS SHOVED PERCY, AND PERCY SHOVED SILAS AND TONY HAD TO BREAK IT UP.
NC: I don’t know what went down in that bathroom. Because I think we were in a bathroom or something. Yeah, they were I was in a stall with like a bottle of Hennessy and that’s all else and was just as a bathroom stall.
KH: Ha! Yeah, because–Silas was the only one who wouldn’t take a drink out of all of them. And then suddenly, it was sitting in his hands! That was definitely a Jenny thing!
NC: Yeah! Do you think they planted the Henny on Silas?
TS: I think that’s what was happening.
HC: No!
KH: What do you think instead?
HC: Something else? Definitely not about Iris because that would be so embarrassing!
(Laughter.)
WILL ELTON SIDE WITH IRIS AND BRING THE CRM DOWN?
NC: Uh, I can’t you know, spoil because you know the whole season is about us, you know, things are interacting with that whole conglomerate, Elton definitely wants to, I guess stand for freedom. So he’s gonna’ (sic).
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