'Fear The Walking Dead' star Danay García wanted Luciana to be 'strong, powerful and a survivor' rather than just staying alive
The fifth season of 'Fear the Walking Dead' is currently airing on AMC and the horror drama series has once again registered a healthy rating with critics (78% on Rotten Tomatoes). Season 5 follows the survivors led by Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) as they are on the lookout for other survivors, looking to provide help and make up for the mistakes of their pasts.
One of the key characters who played an integral part in the series in the past four seasons is Danay García's Luciana Galvez. García is back in the fifth installment of the series and in an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), the Cuban actress spoke about playing the character and how the character's personality has evolved over the course of the four seasons.
Luciana was introduced in the second season of 'Fear The Walking Dead'. "It was a show that was big enough when I joined, it was a prequel of 'The Walking Dead' and it was a huge show to walk [into]," she said. "I didn't basically focus on just trying to keep this character alive. I wanted Luciana to come about as a character who was strong, powerful and a survivor. I just love anything that has to do with bringing alive the most essential part of human survival, and this (show) was the best place for me to explore that."
In season 2, García's Luciana was shown as a resident of La Colonia where she shared duties of a recruiter and supply runner for her community. In the next season, she was briefly shown to be residing in Broke Jaw Ranch but leaves after deeming the place unsafe. Season 4 saw her reunite with her mates Madison (Kim Dickens) and Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) before the latter is killed. Luciana then joins Morgan Jones' (Lenny James) group in the fifth season.
Ever since her introduction, Luciana has always been a character who has managed to make it out of perilous scenarios through sheer grit and courage. García said it had been a "rough" journey for her character so far in the series. "She lost her entire Colonia, she lost the love of her life, she got shot and then escaped, everything [that] has happened to this woman has been rough," she explained.
When asked her about how the character has evolved, García felt this season was unique as Luciana was surviving not for someone else, but rather because she has chosen to. "To lose everything throughout four seasons and to end in this place she is right now is pretty incredible," she said.
On a personal note, García also added that her character did the exact opposite of what people would have thought. "People would have expected her to go crazy given all that she's gone through in the past, but it's inspiring the way she's turned out to be," she added.
The 34-year old also explained that she could relate to her character's trait of being intuitive when it comes to making decisions, rather than letting emotions influence them. "Even when I accepted this character, I didn't know what to expect, but I had an intuition that this character would change my life, and it did," she remarked.
Luciana has an impressive record of slaying zombies and going forward, we can be assured this bada** survivor has a thing or two to show the dead.
You can catch 'Fear The Walking Dead' on Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and 8 p.m. Central Time on AMC.