[If you want to read this article in Portuguese click here]

Avi Nash, known for his role on The Walking Dead, was one of the participants of the sixth edition of Comic Con Portugal. He discussed his part on the show in a panel that was a little different from usual.

When the actor first stepped onto the stage everyone was surprised. Why? Because Avi talked in Portuguese during the entire panel, except for just a few expressions that he didn’t know how to translate and prefered to say them in English. Despite being born in the USA, Avi spent some time around the world, having lived part of his life in Latin America, near the border to Brazil where he learned Portuguese. He also said to have visited Portugal several times already. The actor challenged himself and talked in Portuguese during his panel, doing an amazing job at that, with a slight Brazilian accent and some Spanish mixed up in it.

The conversation between Avi and the panel host, Cláudia Marques Santos, reporter from the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias, began with an explanation from the actor on how he got the role of Siddiq in TWD. Nash was in London when he received a phone call from his agent telling him about the casting. The will to do it was not much, because he didn’t even watch the show since he is afraid of zombies. Despite that, the agent told him it was mandatory for him to go and, eventually he got the part.

He said that shooting the scenes from the show isn’t hard for him in any way, except from the heat there is on set. Everything else comes natural. His character, Siddiq, is a Muslim even though Avi isn’t, and when questioned about the religious side of his part, Avi told us that it isn’t difficult to handle that fact at all, since he doesn’t have to do any accent or even speak about religion on the show. The actor pointed out how TWD is a show without stereotypes and full of diversity.

When questioned about Andrew Lincoln’s (Rick Grimes) departure from the show, he remembers that there were some sad days on set, but that he understood Andrew’s decision since he spent a lot of months away from his family and that it was getting complicated. Avi affirms that even though Andrew left, his legacy remains, and every shooting day after that is a homage to his 10 years on the show, and that he and the rest of the cast feel more pressure to uphold the show to its standards. Every time he has to shoot a scene he thinks “What would Andy do?”. ” That is the testimony of how brilliant he is and the power of his legacy”.

About the fact that Siddiq survived the massacre at the end of season 9, the actor reassured us that his character isn’t working for the Whisperers, refuting the online theories. Someone from the audience asked if Alpha is as scary off set as on screen, Nash’s answer was that Samantha Morton, the actress that gives life to the most recent villain that haunts our group of survivors, is extremely nice to everyone, but as soon as the cameras are on, she gets into character in a blink of an eye, and that that quickness can be scary.

Closer to the end of the panel, Avi spoke about what to expect from Siddiq in the next season and his relationship with Rosita (Christian Serratos). “The relationship with Rosita is also a relationship with Gabriel and Eugene” said Avi, adding that “a child in the apocalypse is something very special”, and whatever happens romantically with Rosita, they will be forever connected through Coco, their daughter. 

The panel ended with a member from the audience asking for a selfie with Avi, and against the advice from the host, Avi, being very relaxed all the time, after already being out of the panel couch and close to the audience (so he could understand the questions from the audience better), accepted the request and took the photograph. That way we all found that Avi is someone humble, kind and accessible to everyone that approaches him.