Diogo Morgado Interview – ‘The Messengers’ and Good vs Evil

Diogo Morgado Interview - The Messengers
Diogo Morgado stars in The CW’s ‘The Messengers’

Diogo Morgado’s character is simply known as The Man in The CW’s new series, The Messengers, but there’s nothing simple about the role. The Man’s duplicitous, manipulative, and someone you should fear, but Morgado’s actually found a lot to like about this character he’s playing in the sci-fi/horror series premiering on April 17, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT.

“What I like the most about my character is he’s feeding off of people’s weaknesses,” explained Morgado while at the 2015 WonderCon in Anaheim, CA. “Let’s say that The Man could be your best friend, and when I say ‘best friend’ it’s like sometimes our true best friend’s the one that tells us stuff about ourself that we don’t like to hear sometimes. They point out that you’re doing this and this wrong. Or, sometimes, it just raises a question.

Like, ‘What would you do if this and this and this happened?’ As an audience, it would be like, ‘He’s right.’ He’s just raising the question so why would that affect anything? But, it does. That’s the subtle way to manipulate the situation, just like a lawyer would do in court. What I like about this version is that there’s not the [mustache-twirling] evil one.”

As to why his character goes by The Man and not the Devil, Morgado said, “It’s the fact that it’s real. He could be anyone. That’s why he’s The Man and not the Devil. What he represents is actually more important than what it is.”

Diogo Morgado from The Messengers
Diogo Morgado (Photo © Richard Chavez)

So, who is The Man’s main nemesis and what can we expect from this first season of The Messengers? “Well, there’s going to be a lot of twists. I would say the first part of the season you will be 100% sure that you know what’s going on. Like, 100% sure. Even I as I was reading was like, ‘I know what this is.’ And then there’s this huge twist. The biggest twist is the fact that the perspective of good and evil shifts. So, what you thought was wrong, is right. What you thought was right is completely wrong. It’s interesting to see my character in this,” said Morgado.

Morgado continued: “Another thing that I like about the show is that there’s no good and evil, there’s no right and wrong. It’s only circumstances. We are all product of our own circumstances. You could be an assassin. You could be a killer if you were pushed into something like that. Let’s say your whole family gets killed – you become someone different than your nature. So, like I said, what I like about this show is that it doesn’t separate clearly everything that is good. We are all the real fruit or the product of our circumstances. That being said, you’re going to have a clear idea of what his goal is in terms of the opposite – the good – and then it changes completely. You as the audience are like, ‘What should I believe in?’ And it’s really interesting.”

Morgado knows the character and his motivations, but he’s not about to give away any spoilers as to what he’s up to this season. However, he did further describe what The Man is all about. “We can say that he’s the Devil in terms of what they’re using from the Book of Revelation, but for this story he’s The Man. And when I say The Man, he acts and behaves and exclusively out of our own human fears and weaknesses,” revealed Morgado.

“He doesn’t have any special power; he doesn’t do like a voodoo thing and controls your mind. Never. There’s a free will all the time. He only uses human resources. There’s no superpower that allows him to control or manipulate, because he’s not allowed to interfere. That being said, as for the other type of tricks that he uses – like, human stuff – human resources, that is going to be revealed as we go.”

– More The Messengers interviews: Shantel VanSanten and Craig Frank / Jon Fletcher and Joel Courtney / JD Pardo and Anna Diop / Sofia Black D’Elia

Watch the interview: