Dascha Polanco, Gaius Charles & Kim Coates – The Walking Dead: Dead City

By starrymag | May 4, 2025

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

Q: Dascha, you play Lucia Narvaez, I think that is how you pronounce her name. Is that correct? 

Dascha: We had this discussion. How are we going to say it? NarvAIS or NarvAes, so It’s okay.

Q: Well, she’s fantastic as a leader and major in the new Babylon Federal forces. My question is about your training for the character. Did you reach back into your ROTC training from high school to bring her to life?

Dascha [Shocked]: How do you even know that?

Q: [laughs]: Because I’m a reporter, Dascha! 

Dascha: I did! I was trying to get Eli [Jorne] and Michael [Satrazemis] and them to kind of let me show my exhibition how to twirl a rifle, but that wasn’t her weapon. But I was a corporal in ROTC, and I did use that. I thought I was going to start having the whole platoon march and be part of Color of Guard. Maybe next season. Who knows? Yeah. But I definitely did. I think that I use that a lot – personal experience – and I think our actors do as well. I also am stepping into a world that is already established and these guys also helped me a lot with getting to know more of the community of New Babylon. And it was very well written, Michael, Eli and Lauren [Cohan], they were also open to bringing my own essence to the character of Narvaez and to be able to portray her trajectory.

Q: We really enjoyed the season. So, a lot of things happen that make all three of your characters really change plans constantly. So, just sort of talk a little bit about, I guess, their ability to adapt and how important that is to your character for the three of you.

Kim: Just because I’m the oldest by about fourteen thousand years, I’ll go first. Look, that’s what’s great about this season. The writing’s so good and I never…I certainly never knew as I was reading one, two and three all the way through eight where Bruegle was really going to go. I really didn’t. But to find out by reading where he was going to go, then you gotta play the guy. Then you got to, for me, as the kind of actor I am, I like to obviously memorize your lines, and then for me, I forget them. I want to know them so well that I can just forget them, and they just let me play and they let me adlib and they let me be funny. And the villain in Bruegle and the dandy in Bruegle, it was always a great thing, to figure out where he was going to go, especially with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Have you seen the whole series?

Q: The first six? Yeah.

Kim: Oh, well, get ready. Get ready, you guys. Seven and eight are pretty cool.

Dascha: I think that it’s a human thing to adapt to our surroundings and to see New York as it is in this world is also very impressionable. A lot of the landmarks – Central Park – and all the other places that we visit, and we see under these conditions and being brought to life by the methane, it’s a new currency, right? It’s the new currency of this world that we’re living in, how much we need it to survive. And it also shows that at the end how much do we truly want to survive? How much does a human being, but also the characters in this world, be…What do you call it? Not the urgency, but the survival instinct. That instinct just starts kicking in and we notice that throughout we also get curious and interested in knowing where they started, why were these character traits or why are these survival tactics coming into play? So, it is beautiful to see the arc of the character’s story and get to know the layers to each of the characters and how they’re all intertwined in this world.

Gaius: I think adaptability and improvisation is – that’s the name of the game and it’s like we’ve been doing that for as long as the apocalypse has been going on and it’s the constant ability to reinvent yourself, to reinvent your alliances, to reinvent your surroundings, your resources, to make it work somehow. That, actually, I think keeps the world interesting and keeps the characters interesting and I think keeps things really fun to play. So, I had fun, even coming from season one to season two, like Armstrong is already adapting into a whole new environment now he’s a colonel, but he is a colonel on the surface, but underneath he’s going through all these kinds of internal changes and just processing his values and all that. So, I think having all that as part of our world and part of our storyline just makes it so fun to play.

Q: Kim Coates, as a huge “Sons of Anarchy” fan, I have always felt that “Sons” and “The Walking Dead” were kind of parallel shows in the sense that they have the most passionate fan bases. How would you say that the two fan bases compare, and how do you think maybe Jax and Tig would’ve fit in the zombie apocalypse?

Kim: Well, they better have a couple of motorcycles ready if they’re going to come to this world. We have to talk to Norman Reedus about that. Yeah, you nailed it. For me, doing all the movies that I’ve done and the limited series that I’ve done, and even “CSI: Miami,” I did five for [David] Caruso and “Prison Break.” I never really wanted to be a regular on a television show until “Sons of Anarchy.” And so, I was very, very lucky that they invited me to that party. And as you guys know, they’re lucky to have all of us too. So, luck goes both ways. And I’m telling you, “Sons of Anarchy” fanbase was, and still is, insane. They will never forget that show. I remember filming “Sons” at the exact same time when “The Walking Dead” was starting as well and they were both–along with “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones” and “Mad Men,” they were all the cable hits of the world at that time and today they still are. And so last night, or was it two nights ago you guys, when we had our first little premiere, I had all these incredible, and guys, you know this already, you and I are about to find out Dascha, but the fans of “The Walking Dead,” they continued to stare at me going, “Welcome to the family, welcome to the family.” “The Walking Dead” family is real. And I knew about it from Norman [Reedus]. I knew about it from Jeffrey. They’re pals of mine, but to film it and be involved in the walkers and the world that Dascha has been talking about, I’ll never forget it. So, now it’s just about waiting until these things start dropping. Wait until the show starts dropping. I’m not Trager, anymore. I’m playing Bruegle. It’s a completely different guy. But to be invited into that world of The Walking Dead, what a joy it is for me.

Q: I’m actually very curious, to kind of piggyback on the earlier question, you guys get to do so much this season as actors as well, and it’s such, an impressive range that all of you express. I’m just curious, what you enjoyed the most about working on season two this year?

Gaius: I actually enjoyed bringing New Babylon – I mean it’s pretty matter of fact, but bringing the troops and the Army of New Babylon on the scouting mission. I enjoyed the process of bringing our footprint into Manhattan. That just really felt like, it’s almost like not really a war movie, but there’s just something really interesting about that. And I don’t think we’ve seen that in “The Walking Dead” yet where there’s armed forces coming in and what does that look like and troops, and we’re going through Central Park and we’re bringing our guns. It is just…I don’t know, there’s something really cool about that that I don’t think we’ve seen in the world yet. And then obviously the reality of who and what we encounter when we get there.

Dascha: I think for me, being part of the world was obviously super exciting. And also, the pyros, the weapons, the walkers – I mean the work behind the scenes that the crew puts, into bringing this world to life is so admirable. I mean, there were moments on set where I’m like – whether through the logistics of things to see walkers come around you, you’re like, wait a minute, it’s so much work! I never knew there was a university for the Walkers. There’s so much that comes into play and so many moving parts and it’s just, as an actor, you’re acting and, yes, you’re bringing a role, but to be aware that it takes a team on screen and off screen to bring this to life and then the audience makes you a part of this family, as Kim was saying, it’s really the wrapped gift for an artist.

Kim: Can I just add to that, too? You’re both so dead on, but for me to add to that, it’s about the art. We really are in New York now. I live in the Met, that’s where I live. Kim Coates got to go to the Met for a couple of days before I started filming, to live in the Met for a while and to feel, and that Crossing the Delaware, Washington crosses the Delaware – that painting that you see in our series, obviously it’s much bigger in the Met, but the work that the art department did on that painting in that show – it blew my mind when I saw it on set. And so New York without art is nothing. And that’s what we’re finding out in this series, right? You have the New Babylon, you have the guns, the boats, the walkers, but Dama and Bruegle understand art. New York is all about art and we want to bring, as these guys have been saying, bringing the old world back, making it better. The old world, let’s bring it back. It includes art. And that’s why I think Bruegle is such a dandy. He’s into art, there’s no doubt about it.

Q: Gaius, talk about the very complicated relationship between your character and Negan, and especially at the end of the season where you kind of had to rely on each other a little bit? That was fascinating to see you guys both play that.

Gaius: Yeah, well I think Armstrong really figured out that life can’t be so rigid and so black and white all the time, especially in this fallen world or in this world of walkers and death and danger at every turn. And it was really hard – it took basically him confronting his own death to really realize that he needed to make a change. And I think Negan is one of the most fascinating characters to me. Certainly, I’ve binge watched the whole original show just in prepping and working on the spinoff and just the anti-hero thing that Negan brings is just amazing. It’s just very fascinating to me, very engaging. And, yeah, I think Armstrong really has to deal with this idea that you can’t put anybody in a box, especially in this world. You can’t put them in a box and characters evolve and you have to figure out where your place is in that. You evolve yourself as a character and you grow together. And we’ll see even in the second season how they were enemies when they started. They become somewhat of frenemies, but they can still go at it. And I think we see that the sort of underlying tension and the underlying threat between them is still there because it’s still life and death, even though they’ve made a sense of peace with themselves and their relationship. The fact that I represent New Babylon and he represents the gangs of the new world can still put us against each other and could still threaten each of our lives.

Q: Kim, as you mentioned Bruegle is this art aficionado, and a little bit of a dandy, but he is also a formidable gang leader that has been tasked with joining the Dama and Croat to protect the methane gas that the New Babylon is interested in usurping from Manhattan. So, my question for you is, with Manhattan in such a chaotic state with these factions against each other and trying to unite to fight New Babylon, what do you think is the one thing that could unite these various factions? Is there any hope for peace between them? Is it just methane that they’re going to protect or is there something that’s going to bring them together you think?

Kim: I have no idea. I have no idea. All I know it’s the survival of the fittest. It just really is. I mean, if Bruegle really feels that Christos (Jake Weary) and the other gang leader, all three of them together can get to the Croat’s (Željko Ivanek) head and show the Met is a great place to make methane as well. And this is what I can bring and this is how I can kill walkers. If all three were to be able to be together, then Bruegle would go for that deal. But he really is looking out for himself. He’s really looking out for himself. He’s got the biggest gang in New York, and he thinks his brain is better than any other gang members. In fact, he doesn’t think much of the other two gang members because I think, really, Bruegle was probably a CEO of a hedge fund. He has a billion dollars somewhere, which is worthless now. So, he’s well read, he’s well into art and it’s about him. It’s always about him. And if he thinks he can take another gang along with him to get to the top, he will. Otherwise, he’ll kill them all.

Q: He’s also very well dressed. The fit is perfect for him!

Kim: [animated] Aren’t I? Wasn’t he? With all the dirt and the grime and the sweat…Yeah, I am not sure how well I smelled on set, but I still love putting a wardrobe on every day.

Q: This is actually kind of continuing in that vein, but I was thinking about how you guys are talking about them trying to bring the old world back. And even though Dama supposedly doesn’t seem to want that or says she doesn’t want that, she’s still kind of doing the same thing. And I’m just curious, do you think that maybe if all the characters could let go of that notion and not even try for that, maybe that could make the people be able to, I guess, coexist a little better?

Dascha: Yeah, I mean, I guess in her eyes, I don’t know what she wants to go back to, but I think it’s a natural human instinct to want to hold on to the past – what feels comfortable, what feels most at home. And I think the common denominator here for everyone is: what are we holding on to? To those that want the old to come in, or are going to have, like guys had previously said, to allow us to accept that things are going to change and it’s out of our control. We only have control of the choice to either want to survive or not. And I think it’s very easy for us to, within this world to say, surrender and let go. But there’s a tenacity; there’s something in us that doesn’t allow us to surrender, whether it’s the interest of methane, whether it’s our own personal interests. We want to all, at the end of the day, there’s this instinct to want to live and want to see New York for what New York is.

Gaius: I think also your question is making me think of the show and the original “The Walking Dead” and the whole Rick (Andrew Lincoln) storyline where they’re trying to create this utopia, or at least this commune where everybody can be together and everybody can have empathy for each other and we can rehabilitate Negan and all this kind of stuff, but you’re fighting against the human nature for self-interest and dog-eat-dog and the hoarding of resources. So, yeah, I think if we could all let go of that, yeah, we could all live together. It’d be great. But the reality is we’re dealing with the darker sides of human instincts, and I think that’s one of the things that makes the show so good, so compelling.

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*