Interview: Avi Nash talks The Walking Dead 1007, Siddiq’s PTSD
Undead Walking spoke with actor Avi Nash about his incredible performance across season 10 of The Walking Dead leading up to the events of “Open Your Eyes.”
The Walking Dead season 10 has featured some of the strongest performances of the franchise’s run, and Avi Nash’s portrayal of Alexandria’s guilt-ridden doctor Siddiq has left fans talking about his realistic portrayal of life with PTSD. We
Nash, who was on the way to the airport because “the dead gotta keep busy”, noted that he was glad that I thought the episode would be well-received because he hadn’t seen it. He never watches his performances so he relies on hearing feedback to gauge popular opinion. (I think it’s universally agreed that he has been nailing Siddiq’s performance each week)
One of the first questions I asked revolved around bringing so many dark and emotionally charged scenes to life on a weekly basis. It seems like so many of The Walking Dead actors actually prefer filming the episodes that challenge them. Nash agreed, employing a fantastic analogy to capture the experience working on tough scenes:
"It’s like running a race. I used to run track in HS and you’d be sh*tting yourself as you line up on the track in a waterfall start. You’re sweating bullets and you don’t want to do it and you want to be anywhere else in the world and then they shoot the gun. And all of a sudden you’re running the race and all of those nerves are gone and you’re focused solely on winning the race and then you finish. It’s the greatest feeling in the world because you’ve just accomplished that."
Nash says that at the end of those difficult days, after powering through the challenges of the performance, he can look back and see what he accomplished and then he can “go home and eat some pizza and watch Netflix.”
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Nash was thrilled to have Michael Cudlitz behind the camera on “Open Your Eyes,” praising the TWD alum’s ability to make actors feel very comfortable even in the most challenging scenes:
"He’s fantastic. He really made that episode, any every episode he touches, a joy to work on as an actor because you can relinquish your control to him because not only is he a great actor but he’s a great director and so he knows exactly what he’s looking for and he knows how to get you there."
Nash started researching PTSD after a discussion with Angela Kang after season 9 about where Siddiq was heading in the upcoming season. He told her that “whatever happens to him [moving forward into season 10], this event has marked him forever going forward, it has branded him.” From there, it was clear that PTSD was going to be featured heavily in Siddiq’s story heading into season 10 and Nash wanted to be prepared.
Knowing that PTSD is such a delicate subject, Nash did a lot of research to understand the complexities and nuances of PTSD and how it impacts sufferers and the people around them to create the most honest portrayal possible. It was important for him to show that PTSD is so much more than lashing out in anger, and that there is so much more to it.
Though the memories would always be with him, Nash believes that Siddiq was on the verge of healing when he lost his life:
"The tragedy is that he was on his way to heal. He’d opened up to Dante who, unbeknownst to him was a spy, for him that was his friend. And he opened up to Rosita who is someone he really cares about as well. I think he’s on his way to start to deal with what he’s going through and it just so happens that he dies."
One of the things that plagued fans over the past few episodes was whether or not Siddiq had been hiding something from the community. Perhaps he made a deal with Alpha so that she spared him, or maybe much of what the audience is seeing is dreams and not what’s actually happening. I asked Nash about whether or not Siddiq is a reliable narrator in season 10, and he had this to say:
"He’s confused, and it’s only at the end of the episode that it becomes clear to him. There’s a shame that he carries which is that after the Highwaymen came in and everyone had their rebellion, Siddiq included. Tara, Enid, everybody fought back. That’s all true. Obviously they didn’t win, and Alpha set them down and started to decapitate them. In that memory, Siddiq has shame that he froze, and that he wasn’t able to do anything and he wasn’t able to cry out. He’s stuck and not able to do anything, that he’s frozen. It’s at the end of the episode that we see there was actually a Whisperer there holding him down and opening his eyes and forcing him to watch the decapitation of his friends, dearest of which is Enid. That was one moment when his memory had failed him because it was so terrible to remember that he was forced down."
That memory, of course, is rendered complete when Dante enters the room at the end of “Open Your Eyes” and Siddiq is able to piece it all together. Sadly, the realization arrives too late and he loses the battle to Dante, who also seems upset that he has to kill his friend.
Related Story. The Walking Dead 1007 recap: Open Your Eyes. light
Thanks go out to Avi Nash for talking with us about the episode. We’ll miss Siddiq, of course, but we’re looking forward to what the future holds for Avi Nash!