The cast of The CW’s iZombie claim the season two finale is a wild roller coaster ride that takes the audience to unexpected places. At the 2016 WonderCon in downtown Los Angeles, Malcolm Goodwin (‘Clive Babineaux’) talked about his reaction to receiving the script for the second season’s finale and he shared his opinion on why it is that Clive who works so closely with Rose McIver’s character, Liv, still hasn’t figured out she’s a brain-eating zombie.
Malcolm Goodwin Interview:
Is Clive ever going to figure out there are zombies?
Malcolm Goodwin: “I have the same exact question and I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m still waiting for it. I’m with the fans. I’m still waiting to find out if he’ll find out, too. I think it’s going to be fun. I think it’ll be interesting. I think it will be fun to play that and I think it will be a real world reaction, and I always say that for Clive. If he knows that zombies exist, that means there’s vampires, that means there’s werewolves, and it’s like a Pandora’s Box so we’ll see.”
Do you have a theory as to why he hasn’t figured it out yet?
Malcolm Goodwin: “Zombies? I don’t think that will be the first conclusion he’ll come to with someone who has like white hair. He does think she’s goth but I don’t think he’ll go, ‘She’s either goth or she’s a zombie.’ I don’t think he’ll jump to that conclusion. The show exists in a real world, in terms of we make so many pop culture references. He watches Game of Thrones; he’s a hardcore fan. So I think it’s equivalent to one of your colleagues saying that they’re a zombie all of a sudden. You’re like, ‘What?!’ It would just be a little weird.
In Vancouver we’ve seen people who look like Liv, dress like Liv, the exact same thing. They walk among us and we never say, ‘Hey, is that a zombie? That could be a zombie.’ But his biggest deterrent of finding out is Liv. Liv has been the biggest deterrent of him getting close to the truth. So being that he’s working with a zombie, she’s able to keep him away from it. And it’s easy to keep it away from Clive because he’s so tunnel-visioned. He’s got his eyes on just figuring out who these killers are.”
When you read the finale script, what went through your mind?
Malcolm Goodwin: “I had no idea it was going to go in the direction that it went. One thing I can give away I guess is that the last two episodes aren’t procedural. It blows up in terms of what happens. But my reaction was, ‘Let me get on my treadmill and get in shape.’ There’s some humongous stunts that happen in the last two episodes. And, they just shake things up. But I was absolutely blown away and couldn’t wait to get on set and shoot it. Like, ‘How are we going to make this happen? This is ambitious!’ But we got it done.”
Do you like doing stunts?
Malcolm Goodwin: “Yeah. When I was little growing up I loved The Fall Guy, Lee Majors. I was a hardcore fan. I used to be able to throw myself down a flight of stairs in high school just for fun. Poeple think I’m hurt and I’m like, ‘I’m good. I’m good!’ But, yeah, it’s an opportunity. Hopefully I get that opportunity to do more stunts if the situation warrants that. But, I love that. I love that. There was little things here and there that I got to do. I got a bruised butt bone where I took a bad spill on my coccyx, but it was well worth it.”
How does he rationalize Liv’s appearance when a brain she eats influences her physical appearance?
Malcolm Goodwin: “I think episode three of this season she’s wearing the sexy dresses because this is the first time she physically takes on…she’s physically transformed so she actually looks like the people I’m interrogating. Like, ‘How am I not going to say anything?’ So I talked to Rob [Thomas] and the producers and they’re like, ‘He doesn’t have time to do that. He notices it and he’s got that tunnel-visioned that he’s just going to let that happen.’ But that was the first episode and probably the only episode where she’s taken on the hardcore physical characteristics of the character that it’s undeniable. Even with the old man in the first episode, she could have worked out at the gym. She could be a little sore. I don’t know what it is. But, like I said, it’s staying true to the fact Clive is this tunnel-vision guy. He’s at work so he just cares about getting the job done.”
Are we going to learn anything significantly new about Clive before the end of this season?
Malcolm Goodwin: “I guess you get to see a little bit of Clive’s home life coming up. It was interesting to see where he lived because I’d never seen it. I was like, ‘Oh! Clive rolls like this. That’s cool.'”
Was it what you imagined it would be?
Malcolm Goodwin: “It wasn’t what I imagined it would be, but it was nice. It was very nice, pristine, clean. His home life is equivalent to his fashion style. It’s very, very clean. But it’s fun. I won’t give everything away, but it’s pretty cool when you go and see his place and the things he has on walls, the books he reads. I thought it was very, very interesting. It just tells you why he is the way he is, and why they’re so consistent with him being the character that he is which makes it fun for me to play.”
Watch the full interview with Malcolm Goodwin on iZombie season two:
