Exclusive Interview with Danay Garcia – Fear the Walking Dead Season 3
Staci Layne Wilson
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As AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” returns for Season 3, survivors will come together in the violent ecotone of the U.S.-Mexico Border as they fend off zombies at every turn. International lines have been erased following the world’s end, so when the new season picks up, our favorite characters must attempt to rebuild not only their families but society as well.
We caught up with Danay Garcia, who plays Luciana, and here’s what she had to say about what in store for fans.
Dread Central: What’s it like being on a show that’s known as a spinoff?
Danay Garcia: When I joined the show, they introduced my character at Comic-Con. It’s a good question because I thought about that: doing press, kind of getting to know different people, and the feedback, because the show is about to come out. How would be describe it? When I started the show, I got introduced at Comic-Con and the fan base there was huge! It was the Oscars for us. It’s a big moment where everybody gets to know the actors that play these amazing characters.
When I got introduced – the love, the unconditional warmth that all the fans had for me, even before seeing my character, even before knowing what she was about – was really incredible. From that moment forward it really hasn’t stopped being that amazing and I’m so grateful and lucky because here I am in a panel, about to talk about a character that nobody knows, and everybody is so excited about it. In “Fear the Walking Dead” we don’t have the comics, we don’t have any books, so it was so open and they were so excited and curious to see who she was without having a point of reference of what they were going to get. I took that as a responsibility to give them more of my creativity, building this character and going deeper into her being. I wanted to craft Luciana in a way that it’s continuously engaging to the audience, in a human way, in a profound way, and that is inspired by the love and gratitude.
DC: What can you tell us about the very beginning of the new season? Where are you?
DG: It starts with a very intense, high stakes mission impossible type of thing. It’s fast, it’s running, it’s flying, it’s killing zombies, it’s rats… it will be everything. Oh yeah, we cover pretty much everything. I remember shooting the first episode, it was day three and it felt like three months. I was like, ‘Really, oh my god, this is the first episode still, it just kept happening.’ There is a clip that already came out where there is me and Nick (played by Frank Dillane) and we’re going down this tunnel that was actually a sewer. Well, our amazing art department made it possible, but it was already pretty set for us as a sewer. It was hectic and we wanted to shoot this really quick, but it takes time of course. So every day was a new adventure; every day was high stakes. It was raining, it was wet, it was pretty intense; and I know for a fact that the audience is going to feel that energy, and [think], ‘Oh my god, are they going to make it?’ We didn’t know if we were going to make it, it felt so intense. But it was so exciting, too.
DC: How about Luciana? She ended Season 2 in a really bad way.
DG: She starts really bad, too. She gets shot and she’s physically in bad shape and emotionally even worse, because she’s lost everyone she knows. The only person she has left is Nick. To keep fighting, it gets harder and harder for her because there’s no reason. Not just that she lost everybody, it’s that she put everybody in that position, she told everybody to follow her because of Nick. She has a huge guilt in her soul about what happened, but also she knows that she to continue, that she has to fight and she has to keep going. It was pretty difficult for me as an actor, it was very demanding. Once we got the season [scripts] I remember thinking, ‘Oh my god, how are we going to start?’ and then when we started and I saw what I had to go through, I had to really go back and work on how she would be. It was a lot of research on how this world can get worse, and how weak my body would have to get, and really portray that. I remember telling Frank, he plays Nick, you know, ‘You’re going to have to carry me pretty much because I’m going to faint and he’s going to have to really grab me over and over again,’ and he’s like, ‘Really?’ I’m like ‘Yeah, I really want to feel so moved, and I want you to hang on to me and I really have to work my body to convey that kind of weakness.’ The fact that she’s fainting most of the time, and I’m trying to open my eyes and close them, it’s a lot of internal work that I have to do, to come up with that pain and make it believable to me and obviously, my fellow actors. They had to put up with that. I said, ‘I’m sorry you have to carry me but I’m going to faint all over so you better grab me or I’m going to crash.’ And that’s the picture you see, of Cliff Curtis carrying me [pics online], I was really gone, passed out. So thank god for my ballet skills; I was able to use my muscles and relax when I had to. Yeah, it was challenging.
DC: Since Nick and Luciana have had such an up and down, rocky relationship, we can only imagine in light of his screw-up in season two, things are going to get even more jacked. Have you gotten some fan feedback on this?
DG: Yes! Well, you know the fans are wondering, like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and they can sense that the relationship is a bit broken. I don’t want to say broken. I’d say cracked, because the plan didn’t work out. It was not a simple plan, it was a plan where a lot of my people died, I got shot and we’re in a really bad place. Obviously, that would put some sort of weight on the relationship, and the fans are kind of like, ‘Are they going to fight, are they going to have this violent fight?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I’m weak.’ I think she’s really weak but when she gets her strength back she’s going to go for it. Not fight with Nick, but put all the pieces that broke back together, because that’s the nature of Luciana. For me, when I started working, seeing the episodes, they kept coming at me, and I just the fact that the writers, the studio, everybody, they just put two human beings, Luciana and Nick, into really difficult circumstances. To see them overcome those obstacles however they can, and not just my character, the entire show, it’s constant. When you don’t expect it, this is the challenge: now you’re going to have to come up with a solution. Sometimes the challenge is survive the zombies, the infected, or it’s a challenge emotionally, and that’s something that keeps me on my toes as an actor.
DC: We know the emotional arcs will be getting deeper, but what about the walkers… will they be getting even scarier?
DG: Oh my god, I saw in the course of the day, my first day back shooting, I saw hundreds of them. It was a huge transition for me because you know, you come from normal life to a set full of zombies, full of blood, and not really pretty… but everybody’s like, ‘Oh, it’s so cool looking,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it’s missing an eye, that’s weird.’ But you know, you’re going to see them. It’s a show that’s instilled in the genre, to kind of have the infected walking, it’s part of our everyday life, so you’re going to see some fights and some action, confrontations and exciting times for sure. I can’t say much of what you’re going to see, but whoever you expect not to fight will fight this season. It will be so unexpected. It’s kind of cool, and so great to experience it.
Catch the all new season of “Fear the Walking Dead” on June 4th 9/8c, only on AMC.
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