Fear the Walking Dead: Lorenzo James Henrie talks fathers and sons
By Susie Graham
Chris Manawa has had a difficult time adjusting to his parents’ divorce and now the apocalypse. Lorenzo James Henrie talks about his role on Fear the Walking Dead.
Chris and Travis were having a difficult time before the craziness of the dead roaming the earth began. Chris felt abandoned by his father and was not interested in getting to know his new step family. It seemed to Chris that these new people mattered more now to his father than he did.
Then the dead did start roaming the earth. And Chris’ mom used her nursing skills to help those in need and Chris felt abandoned once again. When Liza was bitten, Travis had to do something incomprehensible to a son. Incomprehensible to anyone in this next world yet.
Lorenzo James Henrie spoke with Channel 24 about his role on Fear the Walking Dead and how things will move forward this season. He also spoke about saying goodbye to Liza last season.
"“It was one of the most emotional, tragic, sad days of my life. The script was actually written to be a longer scene and when we did it, it was like an actors best day possible. I prepared so that I could cry on the spot. When the director said action, I just balled and cried. We did it in one take.”"
The idea that Chris’ story is a father/son story is one of the things that Henrie finds interesting about his part on the show.
"“Father/son stories are my favourite stories so that really drew me to Chris. I love writing and those are my favourite stories to write. It’s very universal. I think everyone can relate to it at home. It’s hard not to gravitate towards the love and the bond between a father and a son and it’s so much fun working with Cliff too.”"
When speaking about moving forward this season Lorenzo made a very astute observation. “He’s going to have to discover himself in this new world and figure out how to love his father again.”
That’s pretty accurate. The denial and anger phases of grief have hit Chris rather hard with the divorce and his mom leaving to go to help at the hospital and now he’s in denial about the fact that there was no other option for his mom’s bite.
As he starts to take some control of his own life as we saw him do with the walkers on the fence and he starts to mature, he should start to see things from a different perspective and move toward acceptance and forgiveness.