Fear The Walking Dead: Interview With Mercedes Mason
Her hopes for Season 2, and fears for a certain Walking Dead character...
Fear The Walking Dead got off to an excellent start earlier this year, with fans given a taster of Los Angeles being torn to shreds at the very beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Mercedes Mason, who plays the role of Ofelia Salazar, was thrown right into the carnage and successfully navigated her way to the end of the season (just...) but what lies ahead for her character and the rest of the group as they sail towards the unknown?
WhatCulture caught up with the 31-year-old actress for a look back at the debut run, a glimpse of Season 2, and to generally lose our minds about THAT jaw-dropping cliffhanger from The Walking Dead...
WC: How pleased are you with the way FTWD Season 1 turned out?
MM: I couldn't be more ecstatic. We were so nervous, we didnt know what to expect from it, we just didnt know how we'd be received. Then the numbers turned out well and the fans were so supportive. And we were over the moon as soon as the report came out that the numbers were really good. Genuinely, I don't think it's really hit us. It hasn't quite hit me yet that this has become a monster show. I'm half convinced my mother managed to get 5 million of those people to watch.
WC: How has Ofelia changed from the start of the season to the end?
MM: She starts the show as a young woman, very sheltered by her parents. In her own mind, she believed she was protecting them from the world and a different culture, but ultimately she starts discovering quite a few things about them, and reasons why they escaped El Salvador. Not only does it make Ofelia question them, she questions what she really knows about the world. In a cool kind of way, this has been like a coming-of-age and a way for her to mature through all of this.
Even in the first scene when she's convincing her father to let these people into their barber shop, she's smiling, she has no idea how dire the situation could be. As the season progresses you visibly see her change. It's very smart by the writers that she starts out in a pink cardigan then she ends up borrowing clothes from Alicia, and that's when she really starts changing and coming into her own. There's that scene with the soldier where she's seducing him, and likes him, but she's using him. She's really forced to grow up as she's lost her mom, her safety net. She discovers things about her dad and has no idea who he really is.
WC: What's it like being on set with your on-screen dad Daniel (Ruben Blades) dealing with such dark themes?
MM: The irony is people who are familiar with Ruben know he's very well liked. The beauty of this is that they cast him so well because he can go to these dark places. I distinctly remember reading through the torture scene and I called Ruben up and I was like 'Oh my God, have you read this yet? This is insane! Do you understand?' and he hadnt had a chance yet so he was like 'Slow down, slow down, I'll read it, I'll read it'. It's really interesting because I'm a huge goofball with the emotional maturity of an 8-year-old boy, so I'm kind of goofing off on set, and I need to keep it light on set. It's fun to go there because we all have things in our lives that we may want to get rid of, so it's nice to exorcise those demons. But then again, I have the energy of a puppy so it's nice to be able to come back out of it. You'll have to ask the other actors what it's like to have me around on a torture scene because I'm probably pulling gags and pranks and being completely inappropriate.
Continued on the next page...