Robert Buckley – iZombie

By: Lisa Steinberg

Q) Season 2 of “iZombie” has upped the ante. Can you talk about the changes that were made this season?

A) Well, there are still plenty more twists and turns to come. It won’t be slowing down any time soon. I recently got the script for Episode 13 and it did not disappoint. They are still ramping up! So, if you like it so far I think you are going to be pleasantly surprised by what they have in store for you.

Q) We have seen a new, darker side to Major this season. How has it been for you to portray that?

A) It’s really nice to see that things have gotten better for Major. He had a tough go of it last season so it’s really nice to see things working out for him more this season. [laughs] Poor Major! The guy just can’t catch a break to save his life. As an actor, it’s been a blast to play. I think, personally, I find perfect characters who don’t have much of a struggle not very interesting. So, selfishly, I love that Major’s life has been in utter chaos. In that sense, it’s fun to play the extreme and high stakes situations. It’s fun because it’s every bit as fun for us as the cast as it is for the viewers. People will tweet us, “I want to know what happens next,” and I’m the exact same way when the scripts come in. As soon as I see a new script in my inbox, I immediately stop what I’m doing because I’m just as curious as everyone else as to what they have in store for everybody.

Q) Will there be a holiday themed episode of “iZombie” this year?

A) You better believe it, my friend! I am a huge, huge Christmas fan so I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw our Christmas episode because they go full, full holiday on it. So, it was a lot of fun.

Q) A lot of fans truly enjoy those “Rajor” scenes where you team up with Rahul Kohli. What can you tease is in store for this bromance?

A) Rajor fans will not be disappointed because there are a couple more adventures in store for the two of them. They find themselves in some pretty interesting predicaments coming up.

Q) There dynamics seems to have flipped recently with Ravi now being on the outs romantically and Major’s love life looking up.

A) I don’t know if it will be like that for too long for him. A handsome guy with that kind of accent?

Q) We haven’t seen Major and Peyton reconnect much this season. Will there be more scenes with them in the future?

A) There will be. I’m a very big fan of their relationship, as well. From the get-go, when I met Aly [Michalka] we just immediately got on really well. We just have a natural ease to us with like a brother/sister dynamic that kind of carries over to the screen. So fans of the two of them will get to see them interacting more, for starters, with her living with the boys at Major and Ravi’s place and outside of the house as well. The fans are big advocates of Peyton so I like that people didn’t have to wait too long for her to be back. She’s a great addition to the cast. And it’s nice to see Liv (Rose McIver) have her best friend back in her corner. Poor Liv has kind of alienated herself from so many of the people in her life that it is nice to see she has someone there for her and someone she can lean on, especially with Peyton being in-the-know about the whole zombie thing. She has someone she can talk to and be honest with. Everyone needs that! Even zombies.

Q) Major has been working for Max Rager these days. Will Liv be getting more hints at his new line of work?

A) Absolutely! It wouldn’t be right if she didn’t find out at some point. I think that it won’t be too long that some more things come to light and expose Major’s extracurricular activities.

Q) Fans seemed to really love your DubSmash videos and behind the scenes photos. Can we expect more content from the cast?

A) What is really great about the cast is that everyone gets along. We do hang out outside of work quite often. So, it’s sort of a natural byproduct of that that we do it. We had such a good time putting them together. It was kind of nice to find out what everyone thought of it. Yes, we’ll be doing a lot more of that. Everyone is quite active on social media so I think it was great to see how the fans reacted and that they enjoyed them. That sort of encouraged us to keep doing it so you’ll be seeing plenty more behind the scenes pictures, silly videos and stuff like that.

Q) What is your favorite aspect of playing Major?

A) I would say one of the things I love the most is that I really like his input in incredibly trying circumstances because I think that’s when peoples’ true character is exposed. We’ve already seen that Major is a good guy and has a good heart. When he is forced into the job of hunting down zombies and otherwise innocent people who have these families, I really love that because that struggle is interesting and fun to watch. As he is progressing, the stakes are increasing. Personally and selfishly, I’m hoping one of these abductions doesn’t go right. I would like to see what happens if the tranquilizer gun doesn’t work or if a zombie escapes because then that will be a dangerous situation. We saw in Season 1 when he was fighting Julien (Aleks Paunovic) he holds his own when it is hand-to-hand combat, but as soon as he goes full on zombie then it wasn’t much of a fight at all. I have affectionately started referring to Major as “the human punching bag.” Every episode he was coming in with stitches and new bruises and scars. My mom had a hard time with that plotline because she doesn’t like seeing her baby boy beaten up on the regular. She was a trooper and got through it, but I don’t think Major has seen the last of his fighting and perhaps losing fights for that matter. Fans who like seeing Major get treated like a punching dummy will be very pleased.