'The Walking Dead' Season 6 News, Spoilers: Tom Payne Says Jesus Isn't a Villain
Tom Payne, the English actor who plays the new character Jesus/Paul Rovia in AMC's popular zombie apocalypse series "The Walking Dead," says that though the character's origins remain unclear, Jesus is not a villain.
Payne, who reportedly auditioned, joined the cast, and began filming "The Walking Dead" all in the course of a week, recently talked to Yahoo! TV about his character and his experience on the TWD set.
"I think fundamentally it's important that you recognize he's not a bad guy, which he even says in the episode," the actor said. As Payne explained, Jesus could have easily killed Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) instead of sneaking around and merely stealing from them. Instead, a curious Jesus staged an elaborate scene where he pretends to have just bumped into them before swiping Rick's keys and taking the truck. According to the actor, Jesus was also quite impressed that Rick and Daryl ran after him, and was thus intrigued about who they are and where they come from.
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The actor also spoke about how the ending of the latest episode, "The Next World," in which he wakes up Rick and Michonne (Danai Gurira) in their bedroom, essentially left Jesus' character in question. "Where's he been? He might have killed everyone. He might have run around and killed everyone in their sleep. Maybe he's there because he just wanted to tell Rick that he's killed everyone," Payne teased.
Speaking of that scene, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor talked about his experience filming the part of last week's episode wherein he had to walk in on Rick and Michonne as they lay in bed naked and joked about the awkwardness of being the new guy and having to immediately dive into such a scene.
"The director was like, 'You should look Andrew up and down, and go "Oh my God" and then give a little smile and then say your line.' I'm like, 'Are you kidding me right now?'" he said with a laugh.
"The Walking Dead" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.
