Danay Garcia & Rubén Blades – Fear the Walking Dead

By starrymag | November 20, 2023

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) How have you changed for the better over the course of the show?

 

DANAY GARCIA:  People dealing with it… And in our show when you meet Salazar (Ruben Blades), you’ve met him before the apocalypse and you met him as he kind of like, transcend and changes and, and each one of us that is our journey. So, going towards the end, obviously, we’ve been through the selfish state –

…to see the worst of us and the best of us. And that is what makes our show different from the others. So, as we were shooting the season finale, I actually asked myself that question, who are we now? I remember meeting Strand (Colman Domingo) for the first time and who he was versus who he is now. I remember meeting Salazar and each one of those characters, I got to see everything. And what I’ve learned is that we are a work in progress. We are not insanely amazing, intelligent people just because we’ve been living in the apocalypse. There’s always space for improvement. And for love to evolve within us. And I just don’t like to think of our characters or my character as, “oh, this is who I became and I’m invincible,” because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this show, is that what you’re saying you’re in control, everything falls, burns, and you have to escape like nothing – like nothing happened. So, we have dealt with that extreme. So, I can’t put it in one word. We are but we are still a work in progress. [laughs]

 

RUBEN BLADES:  What I remind everyone is that this is Salazar’s second apocalypse. Salazar has gone through a whole change before. He was trying to escape what he had become then. And then it turns out that when the world went to hell that he had to return to what he was trying to get away from in order to survive. And at the end, I think Salazar has went through a repetition of all the heartbreak and all the difficulties that he that he had encountered earlier. He probably most likely learned how to accept the possibility of redemption, personally, and the fact that he tried to atone by helping others shows that there was a change in his perspective. The bottom line for Salazar is adapt or die. So, basically, you want to do what you need to do in order to survive. But I do believe that as torn as he was because he couldn’t rescue his wife, he could not save Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) and Charlie (Alexa Nisenson) at the end of the day, he tried. And I think that, like he said to Strand, towards the end when he says, “I don’t want to be fighting anymore. I don’t want to be continuing fighting all the time.” So, there is a possibility that he has learned in the process how to accept the possibility of redemption and the possibility of love.

 

 

Q) It seems for Daniel and for Luciana that as the series moves on, they’re becoming family. Could you both talk about how important that is for each of them to really maintain their sanity in this crazy apocalypse?

 

RUBEN BLADES: I believe that it was clear at one point before when Salazar tells Luciana (Danay Garcia), “From now one year my family will not blood from now on you are my family. We’re not blood, but from now on you’re my family.” And I think that even though all those years went by where they did not have any connection Salazar is not a man that will forget things. That I mean, actually he did a lot of things before he got things. He forgot things when he was ill, but he’s not a man that that forgets emotions. And he always felt this very strong connection with Luciana. And also, because they come from the same backgrounds. They are both Latin American. Plus, the fact that he had lost his daughter, so she soon became sort of like a surrogate daughter to him. So, I do believe that Salazar would probably feel more you know, they can speak in Spanish. They can just react to things that are common to that. And they are sharing this this emergency, I think he would feel more, much more comfortable with Luciana that he would feel with anybody else in the group.

 

DANAY GARCIA: And for me, when you work on a universe where we are orphaned, either by choice or, we’re really orphans, we really have experienced loss and death of loved ones and, sometimes we’re like the only one left in the whole family because everybody died. So in Salazar’s case, that’s his case. He’s lost his wife and his daughter. In my case, I lost my entire family in Mexico, and my adoptive family, most of them are gone. So when you tell somebody, “we are family” and when you open that door, again, by any chance…I think when Ruben was saying, he doesn’t forget though, that feeling is exactly what I felt I was, I was gonna say. We understand what love is, we understand what connection is, and we understand what it’s like to survive not having it. So when it grows in you, and you feel that sense of survival, emotionally that you can survive with this person, not just the apocalypse, but emotionally, you’re safe – it’s something that is really hard to find. It’s something you don’t forget, and you hang on to that.

 

RUBEN BLADES: Remember, the end of culture is the end of everything. So, all of a sudden you have a cultural connection that becomes like your saving in the world – the ocean of uncertainty. Everything fell – Culture as we used to know it. Now, all of a sudden, there is somebody that speaks my language that knows my background and that I can I feel like I can relate to.

 

 

Q) This is a special series, and he’s made so many connections through it, what have you personally taken away Ruben and Danay, on this series, whether it’s friendships, whether it’s something you’ve learned about your skill, as an actor?

 

RUBEN BLADES: There are so many things for us as an actor, because the character Salazar has nothing to do with the way I am. So as an actor, it was a very, very interesting opportunity to interpret what other people that are not necessarily the kind of person that you would call a friend. How do they think, why do they do the things they do. So, as an actor, it was a tremendous opportunity, a challenge, which is what every actor or actress would like to have. And also, it was an opportunity to play a Latino during a period of time where in the United States. In primetime, you don’t see Latinos. Not that many. So, the fact that I could work as a representative of the Latin American actors in primetime, on primetime, on that stage, that was a tremendous opportunity to have ourselves express our positions and our points of view – even though it was a criminal topic at the time. But the fact that we were there, and there was a complexity in the character that also allowed me not to feel that I was playing any stereotypes of any kind. Everybody became a criminal because of the apocalypse, in reality. So, everything changed. So, all of a sudden, we’re in the same boat. And the other thing is I made great friends. I mean, Mr. Colman Domingo, who probably is going to be nominated for an Oscar very soon, and I can brag that I work with him. And then Danay and I are friends for life. I made friends for life in this in this in this series, and I really, I mean, every single person that I work with, I will never forget. And are my friends -even the ones I left early like Garret [Dilahunt] and Lennie [James]. I mean it for me, it was all those things, and also the ability to support myself. I never forget this, that when that when the pandemic hit, I mean, thank God that we have this to sort of be able to work and survive at the time. So. it was a big combination of things. And I’m very grateful for the opportunity I have to make friends as an actor, to develop, and also to face the reality of – I mean, the presented that reality of what the world would be, if everything we know today collapses. It’s a very important question, especially now with the elections that are coming. You have to see what would the world be if what we know today, the systems we know today and hold society together, disappear.

 

DANAY GARCIA: For me creatively, like Ruben said, it’s a role that you get to live for years. Usually, when you book a movie, you just work for a month and a half, and your character stays there. You never get to touch that character again unless it’s a crazy miracle to do a second movie. But in this show, I laughed so much. We traveled. We moved countries. We moved cities. This is a show that I think moved so much, so much that the rest of the shows about the apocalypse. And one of the things I enjoyed is that all of the characters they have we have been injured, right? Like and every year, every season, we’re like, Okay, “How many years have passed?” Like, for example, Ruben will be like, “I have a scar here. I’m not gonna have hair. I’m going to let my hair grow.”  And then Colman would have dreads. So, creatively, I was always so inspired by everybody’s journey with their characters. It was just so exciting to always return. We all have a way to explore ourselves through the characters all the time. And it was never boring. And even when Kim [Dickens] returned, I was like, “I can’t wait to see her. How is she now?” And then you saw Madison (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and then Charlie, and then you see all these people coming and going. I met Charlie when she was like eleven years old. And I saw her transform in the character, too. And I remember, Salazar got shot, stabbed, burned. And we were like, wondering, “Okay, what else is gonna happen?” So, it never got boring. Creatively, it was always challenging to make it work – to make it happen. And, personally, it’s like, when you go through a journey with the same people of like enjoying the process, going through a pandemic, working through a pandemic, we were tested so many times a day. Each other is what kept us together. It is what kept it normal. And, yeah, and the crew was an incredible experience. I directed an episode this year, and I was able to meet them behind the scenes in their process of what they’ve been doing for years for us and getting to know them, with more proximity to their craft, made me really appreciate so much what we do as actors and artists and behind the scenes. I have a different appreciation for who we are. And I owe that to the show and to our process. And, to the fact that we’ve been together for eight seasons…Eight seasons is a long time. People wonder, why are you why are you guys canceling? It’s been a seasons! We done so much! I am glad you are having a great time, but we have been through so much! Even Skid Mark is like losing an eye! When a cat loses an eye, you know, there’s a lot …So, meeting friends and, and getting to know them in this process was really something that I’ll never forget. And it made me better artists too. A better actor.

 

Q) When I screened the final episode. I was like, “Yes, this is a perfect way to end the series, for sure.” My question to you is when you first read the script for the finale what was going across your mind and did you make any suggestions that best fit your character?

 

DANAY GARCIA: Ah, when I read the finale, I remember I called Ruben. I usually call Ruben like, “Did you read it?” Because it’s like the end, right? I’m reading it. I’m halfway. I’m like, “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. As an actor, you always try to justify everything you do, and I couldn’t help myself, to be like, “Where are we going?!” Ruben and I were like, “Oh, we need to say where we’re going, we can just take off.” We kept wanting to – we couldn’t help ourselves, but to justify where we going, and then that’s the end. Like we don’t have to say it for the first time. And we’ve been trained so much to push the story forward, that’s our job, to push each other – push this to the characters and challenge everything around it. And then all of a sudden we realized that we don’t have to say, everybody’s going and nobody has to say, well, actually Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Sherry (Christine Evangelista), they say that they’re going back to The Sanctuary. But other than that, it was so open that there was a part of me that felt like it wasn’t over. But maybe because I am trained to return in a few months. And then later we’re gonna explain where we are. [laughs] But it was a very strange and confusing feeling – like a lot of feelings. I was happy that we have the cat with us. That’s a very nice thing. Maybe Skid Mark is the way forward. Maybe he’s our captain to know where to go. But I just had to accept that we had a journey and we didn’t have to talk about it.

 

RUBEN BLADES: I didn’t believe that it was over.

 

DANAY GARCIA: Yeah, I know.

 

RUBEN BLADES: When I read the script, I still didn’t believe it’s over. I still don’t believe it is over. Because it’s a funny thing, because I have a friend of mine…Many years ago I had a very good friend of mine and I said, “How do you choose the choosing roles?” And he said, “I look at the last page to see if they kill me.” I thought it was funny. And I think he was joking. But the thing is, like the fact that it tells you something if you’re alive. So, I thought, “Okay, we’re not all joining hands and jumping off a cliff or dying somehow.” So, that means maybe something else is gonna happen. Because I mean, frankly, I thought, maybe like Danay said, you refuse to believe that it’s over. So, you go like, “Nah, nah, it’s not over. Something is going to happen.:. So basically, but I still didn’t believe it didn’t feel to me that the stories had been told all of them. And I thought that there were things that needed to be explored or continued. So, I also understand that life has a cycle, there are things that come up and go down. There is a moment for everything. And there’s a moment to say goodbye and go. But my feeling is like, I wasn’t sure that it’s over. And I don’t know. So, that was my feeling when I read it. And I still have that feeling that it’s not over some reason, in my mind. I know I’m not coming back. And nobody has said anything about me about spinoffs or anything – I want to clear and make that clear. But somehow, I just feel like in the cat came…Cats know more than we do and he didn’t come all the way from Texas just to like disappear. The other thing is, I did suggest something at the end. Only, I don’t know, again, my feeling was that always surprised audiences and surprise Strand by adding that little thing in German there, where he would go like… I can think in my head like Strand going, “Oh, my God, this guy. This guy knew everything I was saying even when I wasn’t making it apparent.” You know, the fact that Salazar has abilities that are yet to be known – that’s the way I wanted to sort of leave it. He’s always gonna surprise you. You don’t expect that at all in that moment.

 

Q) The big surprise for all of us was Alycia, coming back to end the series. What was your reaction when you came to know about it? And did you want your characters to meet her at the end? Because I know you guys didn’t actually have a scene at the end.

 

RUBEN BLADES:  I’m gonna try to be brief. I mean, I was very, very, very, very happy that Alicia came back because, first of all, she’s been with us from the beginning. And she should be at the end as well. So, I was super, super, super, super happy that she came back. And as far as our relationship, if anything, it improved with the years. So, it’s always when we see her, you know, it’s like a parent. It’s like a relative. So, I was super happy to see her.

 

DANAY GARCIA: Yeah, really quick. Me too. I feel like her being back. It’s like we’re finishing where we started. It gave us some sort of ending, which, but at the same time, I’m kind of glad we didn’t see each other on screen, because then we’ll really have to continue the show. It will be like, “Okay, now, what are we doing?” It’s a lot.

 

RUBEN BLADES: The other thing is a nice thing that she took care of my cat.

 

DANAY GARCIA: Yeah, you will have that conversation with Alycia, where did you find him?

 

RUBEN BLADES: So maybe I’ll thank her next time.

 

Q) What would you say or would you hope, from maybe a messaging standpoint, audiences take away from this incredible journey, since it has so much depth and so much humanity?

 

RUBEN BLADES: At the end of the day, what is going to keep the world going is love. At the end of the day, what is going to keep the world going is empathy. At the end of the day, what is going to keep the world going is solidarity. And that’s what I hope people end up understanding. The world is not going to survive, if each one of us digs a hole and hides. We are not going to survive that way. We have to be together. So, we together we can face any possible problem and resolve it. That’s what I hope people – even in the face of the most incredibly unbelievable circumstance – we can, as humans get together, bring love and bring our will and we can save it and we can make it work.

 

DANAY GARCIA: And for me, too, I always feel like, I always feel very proud that we are part of a show that talks about the living, not the dead. It talks about human connection. It talks about survival. It talks about friendship and hurt and pain and love and strength. The dead are just gonna always be around us. It’s the darkness that we have to maneuver, but always find that essence of who we are. And if we’re lost, we can find each other to discover it together. And that’s always what kept us going on the show. That’s what always kept it exciting and that’s why those relationships that were formed in on screen and off screen are so meaningful. We really worked in the cold and the heat in the crazy places that but together, as the crew, the cast, we were able to deliver our best and be there for the stories. And you have to have that solidarity with each other to be there because we’re in the apocalypse. But if we have that we conquered and we survived eight seasons together. And we’re here and it’s obvious that that’s really what the answer is. Love.

 

 

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