Fear The Walking Dead’s Mercedes Mason talks survival
By Adam Carlson
Fear The Walking Dead’s Mercedes Mason has a tough job playing the complicated Ofelia Salazar, but how she views the apocalypse helps her performance.
AMC’s zombie survival horror program Fear The Walking Dead tells the story of people in the Los Angeles area during the initial stages of the outbreak.
Watching civilization and order crumble around the survivors was something new to the fans of The Walking Dead’s universe. One of those survivors was Ofelia Salazar, played by the lovely and talented Mercedes Mason. When season one of the show left off, Ofelia was in a situation that left her very alone, as she felt others turned their backs on her in her time of need.
According to a recent interview on tv.bt.com, Mercedes Mason understands the tough situation that Ofelia is in, but isn’t sure the character is quite ready to be a survivor quite yet.
"“Aside from feeling on her own in the world, she needs to figure out where she stands in the world with her family and her new makeshift family. I think she can survive, but she needs to change quite quickly.”"
The hardest part of watching a show like Fear The Walking Dead is putting yourself in the shoes of the survivors. There hasn’t been many real-life situations that can replicate what has been shown on the record-breaking AMC show, but Mason feels that a fascination with death and the nature of humans have a lot to do with how the characters react.
"“It’s linked to human nature. I think it’s a fascination with death. I think we’re fascinated with things that could potentially happen – not necessarily zombies – but when you look around the world there are horrible, horrible atrocities that are happening. Humanity wants to see it to think about how it would react to it. The one thing that binds us all is understanding sorrow and suffering. Different countries laugh at different things, but you can pretty much make anyone from anywhere cry at the same thing or fear the same things. As humanity it really bonds us.”"
Humanity can either bring people together or divide civilizations. We’ll find out more about how the survivors on Fear The Walking Dead handle the zombie apocalypse when the show returns for season 2 this summer on AMC.