A couple of weeks earlier than the pandemic hit, TV Information visited the Texas set of AMC’s horror drama Fear the Walking Dead, the place solid and crew had been laborious at work on the second episode of Season 6, “Welcome to the Membership,” which in the end aired Sunday night time. The particular factor concerning the episode is that was the directorial debut of Lennie James, who stars on the present as Morgan Jones, although he solely appeared briefly on this episode. And it was his general directorial debut, not simply on Worry the Strolling Useless. Now that the episode has aired, we are able to see that James did a bang-up job, however whereas it was in manufacturing, he had no thought the way it was going.
“It is all such an enormous studying curve,” James stated. “The wonderful factor about it’s for so long as I have been doing what I have been doing, I have not had many days the place I am doing stuff that I’ve by no means executed earlier than. And each single day since I used to be in prep and directing has been a day the place I am not figuring out how the day’s gonna go. I’ve had no expectation of it, and day-after-day’s been new.”
Requested how his co-stars — this episode targeted on Colman Domingo as Victor Strand, Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia Clark, and Ruben Blades as Daniel Salazar — had been responding to him giving route, he joked “I feel I’ll pay for it additional down the road.” (Domingo directed Episode three of the season). Critically, although, Domingo stated that the entire solid and crew was beneficiant and supportive, which he appreciated. “This crew is wonderful,” he stated. “I stated to somebody earlier, I am unsure the appearing division could be so beneficiant if one of many lighting guys went ‘I’ll be an actor.’ I am unsure we would be as beneficiant and as open and as useful as this crew has been.”
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James had been speaking on and off with the producers for some time about directing, however he hadn’t been feeling as much as the problem till now. He did not know what modified, however one thing did, so he went for it. “For no matter purpose, at the start of this season I phoned up the boys [executive producers Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss] and stated ‘I’d take you up on that provide.'”
After he took the job, he sought out recommendation from Domingo, who has directed three episodes of the present up to now, and Michael E. Satrazemis, Worry the Strolling Useless‘s main director. He went out for espresso with every of them — Domingo rode to his assembly on one of many rental scooters which might be throughout Austin — and requested them each query he may consider. “They have been unbelievable mentors,” James stated.
Domingo stated that he was very excited that James was lastly directing, as a result of James was nervous to do it. “I sat down with him and talked to him and gave him some hints of what I’ve discovered. However I feel as a result of, once more, and I advised him to lean into the truth that that is your present and that persons are very supportive and all of us need you to win. And so, you already know what you already know, and what you do not know, that is okay too. That we’re right here that can assist you out. And so I feel he is leaned into that as properly. And he is a grasp actor and an excellent communicator. And I feel these are… Particularly being an excellent communicator, is a good ability to have. And I feel he understands actors. So I feel, actors all the time love when different actors direct them. So I feel he is nice. I feel he will lean into this in such a good way that we’ll be seeing him do extra of this.”
Worry the Strolling Useless airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.
Lennie James, Worry the Strolling Useless