Excerpts from the article:
It was only after reading the comic books that the actor gained a better understanding of the character of Jesus, and he quickly built up a set of expectations that, unfortunately, never quite came to fruition.
“They give you like a hazy, ‘This might happen, and this might happen,’ so the only bible I had to go by, really, was the comic books,” Payne explains. “A lot of my dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that that was what I really had to go from, and I had my fingers crossed the whole time that I would get this cool moment—you know, where he fights Negan, where he throws the grenade back, whatever. And then I’m just crossing my fingers every episode, and that just grinds you down after two years of doing it.“
”What ended up happening was, I was saying to myself, ‘Oh, you know, I don’t have a huge amount to do, but at least I am making money,’“ he explains. “And then that made me disgusted with the whole thing. That’s not why I do it … If I wanted to do that, then I would be on a soap.” All soap-opera shade aside, the actor, who’s still rocking the Jesus hair, quickly states his goal was never to be rich or famous. While those are two perks that can come with the job, his aim, as he tells it, has always been to find the truth in acting and to connect—with the character he’s playing, and the audience that’s watching.
Acting, as they say, is about reacting. And if you have nothing to react to, then you’ve really got nothing to do. It’s a notion that explains Payne’s work ethic and speaks to the issue he had with last season’s story line that put the anti-war Jesus in a secret alliance with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) to pledge a fight against Rick. As Payne tells it, he refused to say a line as it was written in the script. That portion of the scene ended up being cut.
“I’m not going to lie on camera,” Payne tells me. “If I don’t understand this and don’t make it true for myself, then I can’t do it, and it won’t look real. Maybe it will for this show because they don’t care about that, but I care about that. Whatever I do on-screen has to be real to me, and if it’s not real to me, and it doesn’t make sense to my character, then I can’t do it, and I can’t make it truthful, and I refuse to put that on camera."
This easily sheds light on his frustrations regarding his time on The Walking Dead. But there’s another detail about Jesus that the series never truly addressed head-on: his sexuality. "My character, which they could’ve done more with, was gay,” Payne says. “But they didn’t even explicitly say it. The people that should’ve seen it and recognized it, recognized it. But I still have people coming up to me like, ‘Jesus is gay?!’”
It was already established that the characters Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Tara (Alanna Masterson) are gay. But the representation on the series hasn’t really addressed the issues that can come with rebuilding civilization with different sexualities in the mix. Moving forward, it’s looking like the LGBTQ visibility on the series will be getting a bump with the addition of characters like Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) and Magna (Nadia Hilker). While that sounds like progress, Payne still has a hard time getting over America’s issues of standards and practices, and what can and cannot be done on basic cable.
At one point in time, The Walking Dead was the most-watched show on television. Its ratings have taking a drastic dip since Negan’s bloody reveal. But the program’s popularity has endured, which is why this exploration of truth and representation is important. However, Payne is quick to acknowledge that, at the end of the day, this is still a series based on comic books about the zombie apocalypse. And sometimes, we all need to remind ourselves of that.
“I mean, listen, if you’re believing that zombies are walking the earth, then, I guess, get over the other things that are in there!” he says with an ironic laugh. “We made this leap. There are other little things like, how come they can drive cars for so long? Stupid things like, how come they hadn’t run out of bullets ages ago? How come the tracker who was firing a bow and arrow suddenly knows how to fire a bazooka without it blowing off his feet?"
This man has no more chill, no more patience, and no more fucks to give.
I LOVE YOU, TOM PAYNE! BLESSINGS ON YOU, ON YOUR COW, YOUR CROPS, AND EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE YOU HOLD DEAR.
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