David Anders Says ‘iZombie’s Blaine Is the ‘Most Successful He’s Ever Been’ in Season 5
Q&A
Blaine DeBeers (David Anders) may have lost the girl, but he’s not going to let that get him down in iZombie Season 5.
Seattle has changed quite a bit since we first met its zombies in Season 1 of the CW series, and Blaine is taking advantage of the new world order. In fact, things are going quite well for him in the new season, at least professionally — and maybe personally — speaking.
TV Insider spoke with Anders ahead of the final season to find out how Blaine’s doing after Season 4. Plus, the actor looks back on his character through the years.
Can you preview how things are going for Blaine personally and professionally?
David Anders: Going into this season, everything is going swimmingly for Blaine. He’s the most successful he’s ever been.
Personally, he still doesn’t have the girl. He lost Peyton. That’s never going to come back his way, or is it? But he’s making do. There’s a lot of other fish in the sea that is New Seattle.
Will we see Blaine dealing at all with what happened with his father or has he completely moved on?
There will be glimmers and scenes here and there, talking about dad. He thought he was finally having the relationship he always wanted with his father for 35 years, and then like that, he was gone, so he’s going through it. Blaine has a heart, too.
(Jack Rowand/The CW)
Do you think Blaine in Season 1 could have imagined that the city would end up like this?
Oh, absolutely not. I think that the first season, when Liv and Blaine met each other, they assumed they were the only two zombies in Seattle, in the world, so I don’t think they saw it going the way it went.
Any way they saw it go, if the disease was to hit on a major scale, it’d be something like George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead or one of those old zombie movies — not just zombies and humans walking side by side, being OK with each other or not being OK with each other.
Are there any fun or interesting new dynamics for Blaine this season? Anyone he’s interacting with he hasn’t in the past much?
There’s some cool things, some cool fighting. It’s Brazilian fighting, to impress a girl. I do some of that, and that girl happens to be Gage Golightly, a wonderful actress who comes in.
She plays a reporter. She’s trying to crack this big story, she’s got a scoop. She’s going to win a Pulitzer for it. They develop a bit of a liking for each other.
(Robert Falconer/The CW)
Will we see any fun brains for Blaine?
That Brazilian dance fighting brain is one, that’s for sure. There’s a couple others.
I was just talking with someone [who asked], “Were you ever jealous of Rose [McIver] getting to utilize all of her acting chops with all of these different brains?” And I’m like, yeah, a little bit, but what Rose has had to do the last five years is exhausting. While she’s prepping one brain, she’s still doing the last episode’s brain and she’s trying to walk the line between Liv and this brain. I tip my hat off to Rose. She really hits home runs every episode with her work. [But] I would’ve liked a few more brains.
With this being the final season, were there any bucket-list moments you wanted to see for Blaine other than that?
Rose and I were really the ones lobbying for a musical episode. Then [executive producer] Dan Etheridge told me, “David, you get a musical episode every episode. What are you complaining about?” It’s true.
You guys got me singing — except for this season, they don’t. I didn’t sing in Season 5, but they are using my music, David Anders’ music, in Episode 4, so that’s fun.
What are you going to miss the most about playing Blaine?
Everything about him. There’s a freedom to it that I’m going to miss. I was instructed to “just chew the scenery and do that David Anders thing that you do,” and I was like, “English? Play an English guy?” “Yeah, do that guy, but from Seattle.” I was instructed to tear down the scene, tear down the walls.
And they wrote for us all very well. They wrote to our voices very well. So, it was hard not for David to become a lot of Blaine and Rahul [Kohli] become a lot of Ravi, etc. Weirdly, it’s the closest part to me, to David Anders, that I’ve ever played, minus the multiple homicides.
iZombie, Final Season Premiere, Thursday, 8/7c, The CW
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