The Walking Dead: World Beyond, which has premiered its two-season limited series, committed to expanding the zombie franchise by exploring corners that were previously only hinted at. One such corner is the mysterious shadow organizations that have grabbed at power in a vacuum, such as the Civic Republic and its connection to Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln) disappearance in Season 9.
Julia Ormond plays Elizabeth, one of the leaders within said organization that comes across the teenagers at the center of the story. They’re looking for answers about their father, and she just may have some clues, but first they must understand her motivations. The actress spoke to Screen Rant about why she may be so hard to decipher and what she thinks the latest spin-off has to offer.
Your character's a little mysterious at the outset. What attracted you to the role of Elizabeth?
Julia Ormond: I've got to confess that, I guess, what I've learned about TV and the way that TV works is that you've really got to fall in love with the show. Or maybe that's what I as an actor feel; you've got to fall in love with the show, you've got to trust the creators of the show, and the writing. And you've got to go and want to join those actors. I think that's how over time, doing television, that's what I've sort of fallen into. Because you don't get every episode when you start; you've got seasons to come. So, you have to trust that they're going to make the most [of it], they're going to use you well, they're gonna challenge you - but in a good way.
But one of the things that I was really impressed with was the way that [Matthew Negrete] and [Scott Gimple] write female characters. They're not afraid for women on the show to be tough, to be fierce, to be flawed, to be all over the map, I feel like they right human beings - because they also feel the flip side of it is that their version of masculinity, right from the get go, has been a very modern range of emotions and vulnerabilities. I really do like that about the show. And I think that when you have somebody like Elizabeth, who has a military role to play, that's really critical.
I really find it refreshing that this show is taken from the lens of these two young ladies that are just trying to find themselves in the craziness of the world. With that being said, how does Elizabeth view Iris and the community that she's in?
Julia Ormond: Well, I think it's one of those things where that is what this series and those two seasons will unpack. When she first arrives, she's clearly got an agenda, but you don't really know what's behind the agenda. You don't really know the thinking behind it, the emotions behind it - but there is clearly some need. I think you should be left a little bit on the fence, in terms of is she personally transgressive in execution of what she's asked to go do?
Without getting into any spoilers, what is the Civic Republic?
Julia Ormond: The Civic Republic is a sophisticated community. I know that [Nico Tortorella] quite well described it as sort of how the Walking Dead series has been local, it's been family and then it builds up into these communities and Hilltop. There's something about the CRM, where it's probably the most sophisticated community that we've seen; you get little bites of things throughout Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, in terms of those moments where as an audience, it's a drop in the bucket of something that's going on in this world that is not answered for forever.
In CRM, we recognize there's been a soldier that has landed, there's been somebody else with a map. There's been these little bites of what the CRM is, but it's basically the most sophisticated community that is out there. And in Walking Dead: World Beyond, we kick off with the three circles that you see on the slightly ominous black helicopter that takes Rick Grimes away, and will never be forgiven for doing that. They represent this alliance of three different communities, of which the CRM is one of them. And the most mysterious one.
How does your character end up being where they are at the beginning of our show? What were the circumstances that led up to that, or will that be explained in the show?
Julia Ormond: It's a little bit spoilery. What you should get a sense of is that they have a military background and military experience, and that they've gotten pretty high up. Elizabeth does occupy a leadership position. But I also get the sense that where they're at in the hierarchy - and maybe this is something more helpful to answer - they are not necessarily the highest up person. They are also fulfilling a mission.
So, there is this kind of political mission, political agenda, that the military personnel are executing. And then you've got the individual within it, who's kind of trying to find their way of executing it. And I think in terms of backstory, of which we will see more or find out more, more about them, there's a lot of justification for why she's at the level she's at.
What is it about Elizabeth that you wanted to bring in your performance that may have not been on the page?
Julia Ormond: I think for me, what I really wanted to do was identify what happens for military people and veterans around dissociation. In order to be able to do your job, you have to dehumanize as a human being. So, there's this tension between who you are at work, and who you are in the impact to the world, and then who you are as an individual. That dehumanization, I think, for me was something that I really looked at.
I went back and looked at things like Apocalypse Now, and that kind of weird military thing of, "I am now so used to this that it doesn't pop up on the radar, or part of my job is to ignore it." And then where is that healthy, where is it unhealthy? And then another film that I really loved was Captain Phillips.
I just love the way, in Captain Phillips, that the military and the forces are portrayed as keeping their distance. He hits this tone where there's all this force comes to play against this tiny group of pirates that are driven by warlords in the first place, and yet all of this force is brought to bear to crush them. But there's a kind of disassociation about it. It's a weird power play.
There's something about the tension between being dehumanized in order to arguably do the right thing; that there is some challenge within the leadership in terms of how are we going to get out of this? How are we going to survive, not just our community, but as the human race? That poses a whole different layer of questions, in terms of how you would answer it. Do you get to prioritize your own family, or do you just love community?
Why do you think that the phenomenon of The Walking Dead continues to persist, and what do you think that says about modern society?
Julia Ormond: I think it persists because of there's something about the fact that it's epic and intimate. I think a really good story is often about the fate of someone's soul. When you have a turning point in a character - when you have a story told, structurally in terms of often that moment where a character is isolated, what choices they're going to make are the most interesting times with characters. It's their flaws. And I think you have that in abundance in every episode of The Walking Dead.
It's a totally different show, but another show that I think does that is Doctor Who,. Absolutely mad big fan of. It's the fate of the universe every single episode, and it kind of defies logic that it can be at that size. It can be that epic, but it's also kind of intimate. Who are you at the eye of the storm? Are you going to be making a pact with the devil? Are you making a Faustian deal? It brings up all of that in a really, I think, amazing way. But there is always enough good to bring you back into the next episode.
And I think that's very compelling storytelling, because I do think that maybe another parallel with Doctor Who is that aliens and zombies are kind of sufficiently "other" for it to be okay to have a kind of annihilation against them that feels like it's escapist. But at the same time in the storytelling, it's kind of like trying to analyze a dream: what does the zombie really represent? We've had quite a few discussions about that, and that it's our own inner decay, and it's, it's aspects of us.
Would you ever want to play the Doctor or the Master?
Julia Ormond: Oh, my God. In a minute, in a minute, I would love it.
I'm going to start a hashtag and do a whole movement now.
Julia Ormond: Please, I would love that. Some people want to do Shakespeare, I want to play Doctor Who. I really do. I think it's amazing.
Who was your favorite Doctor?
Julia Ormond: I've worked a few times with him, but I just love Peter Capaldi. Peter Capaldi could sit in a room and do nothing, and I would be like, "Oh, he's so good." David Tennant was also [great]; a lot of them have been totally brilliant. But for me, there was something about Peter where you thought, "God, this role was written for him," all the way through.
It's one of the shows that I watch with my kids. As a Brit in America, I love the fact that they love Doctor Who. They've become a big fan of it. We always go through this thing when there's a new doctor, of fan disgruntlement. "I'm really sorry, I'm really sorry. I can't get into this doctor." And then all of a sudden, whoever it is, we've always come around to absolutely loves them.
Elizabeth is a leader who knows how to get things done. What have you learned about yourself during the real-life pandemic, and do you think it'll help inform your character more in the future?
Julia Ormond: I think what I would say about the pandemic, and I'm not sure of how directly it's answering the question, but for me there is something about storytelling around apocalypse or utopian, futuristic storytelling, that helps us process. It's right at the heart of storytelling. A friend of mine did a documentary that unpacked what the structure of Disney movies are, and how there is very often at the center of it.
The catastrophe is the loss of a parent, and then what happens to this young child. And it's very much that with the original Disney writing, there were a lot of Jewish writers who had escaped Nazism and Hitler and death camps. The happy ending that comes out of Disney is the loss of a parent, and the kid finds and taps into the inner resources, and they evolve towards a happy ending.
I think when you have something like Walking Dead and Walking Dead: World Beyond, there is something about us being able to relax and process through a fiction and through something that has an element of escapism built into it. We can somehow process who we are how, and how would I confront art in a way that's just not as in your face as the horrendous anxiety that people have faced in this pandemic. This extraordinary level of anxiety that adults, that parents that government, that children [experience].
It's been a really, really extraordinary year. And it continues to be that. I hope that people will be able to find a little bit of escapism, and a little bit of hope. Trust this generation that is having this really, truly weird online schooling; a messed up experience at this critical time of their life. It's heartbreaking. It's one thing as an adult, if you've gone into your life, and it's kind of like, "Oh, six months at home? Okay," or whatever. But as a kid, not being able to relate, it's like the impact on their life has got to be huge.