Z Nation: Keith Allan Interview Exclusive
Keith Allan, the man, the monster, the Murphy.
Z Nation is one of SyFy channel’s newest and original shows about a group of survivors embarking on a mission in the zombie apocalypse. The mission is for a man named Murphy, played by fantastic actor Keith Allan, who is the only man on earth to have survived a zombie bite and must be escorted by a team of awesome zombie killers to a CDC lab in California. I had the pleasure of interviewing Keith Allan and getting an inside talk about the show and himself. Below is the text of the interview you can read or you can go down to the bottom for an audio recorded version of the full interview that you can listen to. That is also where you will find the links to redirect you to his Twitter, and Facebook. The text interview is edited for time and space. The audio interview has all the conversation, stories, and details.
Z Nation is set to premier back on SyFy channel in mid September for their third season, and you can watch season one and two right now by going to Netflix. I highly recommend it.
Interview Begins…
Hey Mr. Keith Allan, how are you?
I’m good, Mike. How are you?
I’m great. Thank you for taking some time today to talk with me and the magazine and for answering some questions.
Yeah absolutely, my pleasure, man.
So, first off, you currently star as Murphy on SyFy channel’s Z Nation.
Yes.
What was it like to play Murphy and get that sense of the character?
Um, well I kind of had to figure it out as it went along. When I got the job, it happened so quickly that I had a vague idea of who the character was and what the show was about. So, I was getting to know him as I was getting the scripts and sometimes you just gotta wing it and see what happens next. Then one week I’m mind controlling zombies.
Speaking of the mind controlling zombies, that seems to be a pretty original twist. Are you glad they threw in these little extra things to go along with the zombie genre?
Absolutely and I think they’re really doing it right. They have creatures a character in Murphy we’ve never seen before in the genre this kind of half-human, half-zombie hybrid and Murphy can tell the humans more than anyone else what it means to be a zombie and it’s kind of a new insight on what people originally thought to be crazy meat-eating bags.
Now, why did they choose to make Murphy blue in season two?
Karl Schaefer, the show runner, he wanted Murphy to look like rotting meat with the shiny blue tint and wanted Murphy to have a different look than everyone else.
With any of the other actors, have you developed a person friendship with them?
Uhh, no, I can’t stand any of them. [laughs] No, no, no, we actually get along really well. We spend a lot of time together so it’s a bit of being like foxhole buddies.
Other than Murphy, who would you say is your most favorite and most hated character on the show?
Its hard to say, you know, I love Warren’s character because I love seeing a strong black woman in charge, I think its something we need to see on TV and she kills it on a weekly bases and looks great doing it. I think my most hated character, well from Murphy’s point of view, is 10K because he wants to kill me.
With Murphy and 10K’s rivalry, obviously Nat Zang, who plays 10K, has a huge fan base. Do you ever receive any hate or anything from the way your character treats his?
Well I wouldn’t say hate, I more get questions like, “Why would you do that?” or “You better not hurt him!” He is a character people love to hate and I get a lot of that. But no real death threats or anything yet.
With the popularity of the show rising significantly, would you consider the show a household name or more a cult classic series?
I think we’re more cult classic, at this point anyways. At this point, our show is still relatively low on the radar because we don’t do much advertising, sadly. So you have to kind of find the show, but once they find it, they love it, and that’s great. But we’re certainly not a household name yet, because people that are into the zombie genre know The Walking Dead; almost everyone on the planet knows TWD but we’re not in that same position yet.
With TWD still on the air do you think that’s hindering the success of your show or is it helping it?
I think it helps, actually. I think our shows are completely different, but once people see our show I think they see we’re not trying to be TWD.
So, are you a fan of TWD?
Oh, yeah, I think it’s a great show I watch it quite a bit.
So with you being blue a lot obviously a bit of makeup is used. How long does your makeup usually take?
Well I have to give a shout out to Corrine Foster and John Foster, they do all the zombies, including my makeup, and design all the different kinds of zombies on our show. Which I think is another cool thing our show does because it mixes it up. Just doing my hands and my face, with two people working on me, it takes two hours every morning and when we do the body, with all the scars and bite marks, that takes about five hours every morning.
Where do you think the writers came up with the ideas for all the different kinds of zombies?
Ya know, I don’t know, because I am not in the writers’ room, but I assume it’s because it keeps it fresh and different every week, and some of the zombies are very original and very interesting like the glow-in-the-dark zombies from season one.
How do you do the shooting effects? Are they blanks or CG animations?
No, we don’t use blanks at all, it’s all animated because blanks can be very dangerous and people have gotten killed from screwing around with a blank, so it’s all animated.
So has anybody actually gotten hurt on the show?
Actually Matt, who plays Vasquez in the show. I think it was his first day of shooting, and here comes mister bad ass trying to catch me and he comes around a corner and pulls his groin muscle, and he was out for like the next week. So we were, “Oh yeah, you’re such a badass, mister twelve-pack whatever.” He got a lot of shit for that, other than that just pulled muscle.
How do you think you would fair in a real zombie apocalypse?
Well, I think I would take a page out of Murphy’s handbook and find better fighters for me, because I am not a fighter, so I would just stand behind them.
So I have heard something about you and a toenail. What’s the story behind that?
(laughs) In season one, it was the tornado episode, and it’s the shot where my hair starts falling out. Well about three months before we starting shooting, I had hiked through the grand canyon with a buddy and I ended up with a couple of black toenails, so I told the producers I have a toenail that’s gonna be coming off here soon so we have to get that on film, and they were like, “Absolutely.” So it just happened to coincide with that scene where my hair is falling out and my toenail is pulling up but still slightly attached, so im pulling it off and it wont come off so I start twisting it and finally it came off, and it was so gross. Anyhow, brilliant shot, I pull my toenail off and they didn’t use the damn shot. I just want my fans to know how far I go for them.
Why do you think they didn’t use the shot? That sounds awesome.
I don’t know! I thought it was genius and Twitter would’ve blown up from it, but I don’t know, I’m not the boss.
What conventions are you attending in 2016?
Well there is Lexington Kentucky Comic Con coming up and there are a few walker stalker conventions coming up. One is in Denver and one is in… I want to say Nashville, and I’m doing another Comic Con in Houston but I’ll be posting all that information on Twitter as they come up. I’m getting to do a lot of these conventions now and I get so much love and people are so enthusiastic about the show, and I just love my fans.
What can you tell us about season three?
I don’t know everything, I only know some things. I live, I know that. I think in this season, though, there is gonna be a lot of us splitting up and going in different groups and I wont be with gang as much. Murphy is getting to a point where he’s not trusting anyone, at this point, and is kind of fed up and try to be on his own for a bit.
Do any of the stars have any actual real life military training?
Russel, who plays Doc, was in the military. He was either in the Marines or the Army but, yeah, I think he was in for four years.
What projects are you currently working on?
Well, I have a project I want to direct and produce and act in. It’s called Hearts Like Fists, I actually have a website called heartslikefists.com. It’s a graphic novel, dark comedy, about these three nurses-by-day and crime fighters by night. It’s a really broad comic-book style movie. I actually did it as a play in Los Angeles. There is actually a seven-minute opening on the website, so I can show people what it’s like and everything, and I’m really proud of it, and I’m hoping to make it happen in the next year or so.
What other TV shows have you appeared in?
Most of my stuff has been television. I’ve been in stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Star Trek, Will and Grace, Dragnet, The Mullets, which was a sitcom that didn’t last very long, umm… CSI. I did Mad Men.
Have you always wanted to be an actor or is this just something you fell into?
No, I have always wanted to be an actor ever since I was very young, even when I was a little kid. I would sit and watch television for hours on end, and that’s what made me realize it from very early on.
So what makes you get up and deal with struggles every day of being an actor?
It’s a very difficult profession and some very talented people have a very hard time at it. So much of this business is about luck and being in the right place at the right time. But for me, it’s about being involved in the creative and collaborative process, and also there are moments when you completely lose yourself and you get to really be someone else and that’s a thrilling thing.
Have you had any support from friends and family or have you been going solo?
Well, for the most part I’ve been going pretty solo because parents will always want you to do something practical, and the worst thing for them to hear is that you want to be an actor, because most people can’t survive in this business.
What was it like have to transition from theater to films and TV?
It was a little nerve racking because it is a different world. With theater, when something goes wrong you just keep on going, while on TV you can stop. You film in chunks, a lot of people are standing around, so it’s totally different. It’s different but the same.
So have you always been a fan of the zombie/monster franchise?
No, I have actually written a couple zombie movies for the SyFy network. There was Rise of the Zombies and Zombie Nights. I also wrote and directed a movie called 11/11/11 that was produced by The Asylum, also. I have always been a fan of horror movies, ever since I was a teenager. I really enjoy the genre.
What would you say is your favorite zombie movie?
I’d have to say Shaun of the Dead. It had everything I wanted in it.
For the female fans that will want to know do you have a significant other like a wife or girlfriend, or are you still living as a bachelor?
Still living as a bachelor!
If there was one thing you could say to every single person on the planet, what would it be?
To everyone on the planet?!
Yeah.
Wow, Jesus, I feel pressure (laughs) we have got to figure out how to get global warming under control. It is such a huge issue and I think we are in complete denial what climate change is and the toll it’s going to take on the planet in just a couple years.
When will season three of Z Nation be premiering on TV?
Same as last season, mid-September, something like that.
Well, that about wraps it up, thanks again for taking the time out to do this, I really enjoyed and appreciate it.
Alright, man, thank you.
Syfy has confirmed the Walking… The Zomb… The Unde… The flesh-eating rage… Oh, fuck it, the zombies will return for another season in 2016. Please follow and support Keith Allan and be sure to check out Z Nation, now one of my favorite zombie shows.
Official Twitter page: https://twitter.com/KeithAllanDuh
Official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Keith-Allan-552937554835925/