It’s Thanksgiving time on “The Originals,” and on Thursday night, Klaus and Elijah Mikaelson will sit down with their first sires and break bread.
The holidays are always a good time to catch up with one’s nearest and (once) dearest, but with at least two of the sires plotting against Klaus, Elijah and (the missing) Rebekah, we’re expecting this dinner to be one disastrous event.
Ahead of Thursday’s all-new episode, Access Hollywood had our own catch-up (sans Tofurkey, corn bread and knives) with our favorite ancient vampire werewolf portrayer, Joseph Morgan, about all things Season 3. But in addition to getting his take on Klaus’ feelings for Aurora, the show’s big action sequences, and his thoughts on the possibility that Davina could break the sire lines, we kicked things off getting his opinion on the fate of a character from another Atlanta-filmed show.
AccessHollywood.com: I’m going to start this interview a little like how I started my Comic-Con interview with you when I asked you about Jon Snow [from ‘Game of Thrones’ and his fate. But this time,] I have to ask you if you think Glenn is dead on ‘The Walking Dead’ since you enjoy that show as well?
Joseph Morgan: Yes, I am, but don’t spoil the previous Sunday’s because I haven’t seen that one yet. I’m not completely caught up. Glenn’s dead. … I mean, I’m sorry to see him go, but like, we saw him on the ground with his insides being pulled out of him. I mean, you don’t come back from that. Well, I mean, you do — as a zombie — but you don’t come back from that as a human. You don’t live [after] that. And yet they’ve teased that he’ll be seen again on the show, so I’m guessing it’ll be undead or maybe flashback, bit of flashback, with Maggie, maybe. Something to make us really feel for her just before she finds out that he didn’t make it.
Access: That would crush us. … It’s kind of a fun topic just because you work on a show where sometimes the dead don’t stay dead and so you get to deal with characters that we thought were gone and they get to bring ’em back. Does that make it exciting for you — working on a show where anything can happen, including dead people coming back to life – because it’s unpredictable?
Joseph: Yes. Yeah, of course. I love genre stuff, so it’s really a dream come true in that way, and yeah, it does. Although, it’s really — like for example, Season 1… I think it was Episode 12, we had this terrific character, Papa Tunde, [played by a] great actor, Owiso Odera… He came and portrayed this character beautifully, but the way the story was written, the character died at the end of the episode. He had a terrific one-episode arc and then died at the end and we were all — well, [Daniel] Gillies and I were leading the charge, sort of, ‘Papa Tunde must come back!’ He was so wonderful and it’d be great to do another episode with him, and [there’s] a great villain here and all of this, and three seasons on, I’m still waiting for Tunde to turn up (laughs). So sometimes, it doesn’t happen, but yes, the possibility of it is exciting, certainly, and it was used to great effect in Season 2 bringing back our parents, particularly Sebastian [Roche] as our father… and he’s, from what I understand, a bit of a fan favorite and certainly a favorite on set. There’s nobody that doesn’t like Sebastian. He’s just a pleasure to have around, so it was wonderful that he was a part of the show. Quite the opposite from Mikael, you know. … So yeah, it is exciting in that way… Also, they use it as a bit of a tool on the show to comfort people who are getting killed off, like, ‘Well, you know, you are getting killed off, but hey, you never know. You could be coming back.’ So it maybe softens the blow a little bit.
Access: With that said, with the kind of Davina-could-be-able-to-do-something-about-the-sire-lines plotline kind of coming back into the picture this season, does that also make it exciting? If she were to break sire lines, that could be really interesting too if that’s something that they write in there?
Joseph: I guess it means none of us have job security (laughs), because at the moment, I’m like, if Klaus dies then there’s a lot of people dying, including a lot of people in Mystic Falls, so I think I’m OK. But yeah, I guess if the sire lines are severed, then who knows? Anything can happen. But that’s good I think.
Access: For sure. … So [it’s the] Thanksgiving episode this week. Have you ever personally ruined a turkey?
Joseph: Ruined one?
Access: Yeah, that’s something that happens to people at Thanksgiving.
Joseph: Do you know what, I haven’t cooked turkey for so long because I’m veggie now, but… I think I did cook a Thanksgiving turkey, but I did all right with it. You just gotta leave enough time, you know? Those things take a long time to cook, I think. … No I haven’t, and certainly not created as much drama as will be seen at the Mikaelson Thanksgiving.
Access: I feel like you guys have had a lot more action this season and I assume that this week’s episode will be no different. Has it felt that way to you? It’s a little like… watching ‘Arrow.’ You guys have almost as many fight sequences!
Joseph: Well, yeah, I hope so and certainly we’ve had more flashbacks, I think, this season, so far. They’re coming quite regularly. There’s a lot more drama. My feeling is genuinely that it’s the best season we’ve done, and I think that’s the way it should progress. A lot of people talk about Season 3 of a show being a really good season because everybody kind of hits their stride and the crew is really great at working together and you’ve kind of found directors that you really like for the show… and the writers are really comfortable with the characters. The whole thing sort of takes on a life of its own and really grows and becomes the best it can be and I feel like that’s happening for us, and it’s really a combined effort. But, yeah, it is a lot more action and I think a lot more emotional content, and a lot more drama to come.
WATCH: Charles Michael Davis On ‘The Originals’ Season 3 Fight Club!
Access: [This season they gave you guys these original sires] — the trio. Do you get to talk to the writers about some the decisions and some of the reactions that your character makes on the show? You’re so far into playing this character, and we’re going back in time. I’m just curious if this new stuff has given you more conversations with the writers where you’ve been able to be more influential?
Joseph: Look, the truth is that we’re really lucky on the show, Daniel and I particularly, having been on the show and on the other show for a long time, that we’ve developed a really good relationship with the writers. They absolutely craft the story lines and put in all the work in terms of making these wonderful stories, and writing all this great dialogue. We are, however, lucky enough that we are able to have sort of conversation and collaboration with the writers after the script comes out and tweak things and talk through dialogue that might be more comfortable or any little ideas that we have, but it’s not anything that’s hugely changing the story line, you know. But yeah, we have our say and we’re lucky enough that they listen at this point and that we’re all trying to be respectful of each other’s work and boundaries. But yeah, we do stick our oars in for sure.
Access: Finally, [I wanted to ask you] about the scene with Klaus and Elijah, where he was talking about Aurora and he was sort of saying, ‘You changed my course.’ Do you think Aurora was really the love of his life, or he was just so bitter about what happened that he was just spitting out stuff?
Joseph: I believe she was, at the time, and I believe that so much that I got them to put in a line where, during that fight, I say, ‘I loved her, and you took that from me,’ or ‘You stole that from me,’ it was, but then, I think that was removed for whatever reason. Maybe it complicated the dynamic with other people or whatever, but you know none of those people were around when Klaus believed he loved her. This was before any other romantic interest we’ve ever seen him with and I went into Episode 5 thinking this is a love story, and this is his first love and it’s probably the last of his innocence and so yeah, I believe he did — past tense.
“The Originals” airs Thursday at 9/8c on The CW.
— Jolie Lash
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