This week’s episode of The Walking Dead World Beyond showcased the demise of Lyla Bellshaw. Her death is one of the best executed of the series so far. Here to talk about the big character death is Natalie Gold, who played the character in this brand new exclusive interview.
The theme for this episode is to catch the mice and then when the mice runs out of energy, it gets devoured better. And the next thing you know, the same thing happens to your character later in the episode. What went through your mind when you went through the entire script?
NG: “I knew that Layla was going to go. I just didn’t know how. And so when I read the script, I just thought it was a really cool epic death. I thought it was a full circle moment for Lyla in a way that she gets killed by by an invention of her own creation. Like she killed Barca and its poetic justice for her. In her mind, she started to break a little bit. But she keeps telling herself it’s for the greater good and she ends up being on the other side. So. I felt sad for Lyla. I think she was trying to do her best.”
Your death scene really played out well and I love the gore that came with it. Would you like to tell me some of the behind the scenes work that went into developing that scene?
NG: “Oh, we had an incredible like a whole VFX team. So the special effects team and their whole department took me to the trailer to get that huge bite mark on my neck. And then we had a whole system with the blood and everything. So that was really cool. I hadn’t gotten to see them yet because they work on all the empties and they do all the cool effects and stuff like that. So that was pretty awesome.”
Was that scene done in one take?
NG: “The blood was done in one take because we just did that at the end. But the fight between me and Barca, we did multiple times and that was kind of a beautiful. We had our stunt choreographers creating this amazing fight. And then Al Calderon, who played Barca and I rehearsed it, and then when we went to go do it, we just added 1,000,000 times and it was a lot of fun and totally exhausting. We were both very sore the next day and exhausted. And then we had our two amazing cameramen. Craig and Joel, and they’re with us at some points. So we were jumping around the cameras and over cables maintaining this fight. So that was crazy and fun. Safe, but just a lot of energy. And then we stopped so I could go get the prosthetic on my neck like we would. We would cut right when he was about to bite me and we had just that take for him and for the blood to kind of spread out.”
Do you have any stories to share about working with Pollyanna McIntosh?
NG: “Oh God, it was. We had a great time. We spent a long day like in the interrogation room and we just felt really like happy to be working with each other and it just felt like a kind of cool, incredible energy. We were excited to do those scenes and then work with each other. Pollyanna is so cool and such an amazing actor and so dedicated to the universe and the story and the character Jadis. it was so incredible to have her come on. I was kind of her direct subordinate and her being the one that I had to answer to, all the pressure fell on my character in a very cool way.”
Were you able to take anything home from the set from either season one or season two?
NG: “I did get somebody on our props department made these like amazing stickers that were like comic book kind of photos, but hand-drawn. It is Leo and Lyla being scientists out in the wilderness. That was so much fun.”
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