Aly Michalka Interview: ‘iZombie’ Season 3, the Love Triangle, and Zombies

iZombie star Aly Michalka
Aly Michalka from ‘iZombie’ at Comic-Con 2016 (Photo © Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)

Aly Michalka is 100% #TeamZombie…or at least her character Peyton is in The CW’s iZombie. The CW’s iZombie finished up season two with a massive zombie fight that should dramatically shift the story moving forward into season three. When the cast made the trek to the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, Michalka sat down for roundtable interviews to talk about that game-changing season two finale, what’s up with the Peyton/Ravi/Blaine love triangle, and whether she wants Peyton to ever turn into a zombie.

Aly Michalka Interview:

Everybody is in the know about the zombies…

Aly Michalka: “Yes, everybody now is officially in the know. Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) was basically the last guy to get the hint and I think he handled it really well. He obviously put his own relationship on the line to save Liv’s ass. But I think now that he knows, all of us as characters are going to be hanging out more in one space. I think we’ll be able to have a safe haven going to Liv’s house – and I guess Peyton’s too because now she’s back as Liv’s roommate – and having these conversations and kind of game planning, ‘Okay, what are we going to do next? Are we going to let this epidemic, this uprising happen? Or, are we going to keep this a secret for as long as we possibly can?’ They truly don’t know how well they’re going to be received by humans.

I mean, yeah, I would be able to receive them as regular people still, but that’s only because my best friend happens to be a zombie so I’m a little biased in that scenario.”

Do you want to become a zombie?

Aly Michalka: “You know, it’s funny. I kind of wanted to at the beginning of the show and now I kind of like being human. I’m like, ‘You know what? I take being a human for granted.’ Yeah, I think it’s interesting to keep certain characters human for the entirety of the show however many seasons we do go instead of everybody kind of turning into a zombie at one point or the other and then getting cured or not. I kind of prefer it that way, even though it would be fun to do the contacts and the red eyes and blood and stuff.”

Will we be delving into Peyton’s love life more?

Aly Michalka: “Yes. We’re going to get back to really Peyton deciding, again, which she’s kind of been doing since season two now because Blaine (David Anders) comes in the picture, who she actually ends up wanting to be with or wanting to have a real relationship with. I think that her heart definitely says Ravi (Rahul Kohli) because there’s that friendship, there’s that solid rapport that they have. But I think with Blaine, she just happens to be physically attracted to him and I think his charm and the fact that he’s kind of a bad boy and very much the opposite type than she usually goes for. I think that’s intriguing to her.

I’m kind of #TeamRavi, but I really have a lot of fun with David Anders. He’s a fun scene partner, so I can’t complain. It’s fun to have scenes with both of them, you know? And to see what the writers end up writing for us, it’s great. It’s nice to be surprised, too, and be like, ‘Oh, they’re kind of going down this direction now. Now we’re changing directions, now it’s this way.'”

Will there be some fun competition between Ravi and Blaine?

Aly Michalka: “Oh, yeah, for sure. I think Ravi is regretting the fact that he didn’t go in there and actually save Peyton’s life. But, I think also he’s not undead and he knows that he could have gotten shot. And I think there’s a part of him too, that let Blaine take that opportunity and save the day. I think that was just him also being scared and not knowing what to do, and not being the tough guy. So, yeah, when you see him kind of watch them have that moment and embrace at the end of the season, I think he really realizes, ‘Maybe I kind of blew it.’ And, ‘There must be some sort of relationship between the two of them because Blaine wouldn’t have been willing to risk his life for Peyton if she didn’t mean something to him.'”

What else do you want to see Peyton explore?

Aly Michalka: “It would be interesting if we saw a little bit of her family. We’ve never met any of her family – her parents, there’s a sibling, I don’t know. And I think seeing her and Liv (Rose McIver) and Clive work together on some of these cases, we’ve had a little bit of a crossover this past season where she’s handling a case where she thinks she’s onto the right guy and it winds up being completely wrong and Liv was right the whole time. We’ve seen a little bit of that but I think we’ll see more as the season continues. She’s able to take a case that crosses her desk as a DA and help Liv, get information from Liv through her visions.”

Did you anticipate from season one that season two’s finale would change everything so dramatically?

Aly Michalka: “Not really. I mean, I think we all were just open to whatever the writers were going to do when it came to that finale. I think for us we were all really surprised by how much action there was. We do have action in the show, but it’s not every episode. It’s like every few episodes and so we were like, ‘Oh, there is like an actual full-on zombie fight.’ So, yeah, I think that was the most fun. And the fact that it was kind of gory and there was blood and stuff which you don’t have every episode. I guess maybe you kind of do with the dead bodies. But, yeah, I think we all were stoked that there was so much action. I was just basically kidnapped so I was like duct taped the whole time, but that was still fun. I was just kind of mute on the set that day.”

Otherwise you’d be in the mix, fighting.

Aly Michalka: “Right. Exactly.”

Watch the full Aly Michalka interview: