‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Star Cliff Curtis on the Show’s ‘Walking Dead’ Comparisons

The premiere of Fear The Walking Dead is only two weeks away and the show’s stars are dishing on their characters and what to expect from the highly anticipated companion series.

Cliff Curtis stars as Travis, the central male figure of the show and a teacher who, at the onset of the apocalypse, is really just trying to keep his life and family in one piece.

Curtis chatted with Entertainment Weekly recently about what fans of The Walking Dead can expect from Fear, along with giving a little more detail on his character, that we may not have necessarily picked up from the Comic-Con trailer.

On Travis as a character:

“I just see him as an everyday guy, a high school teacher, an English teacher, passionate about his community and about his family. He’s sort of an ordinary guy in that sense, you know? He’s between families right now, he’s divorced, and met someone else that he loves and is becoming a part of that family. So he’s got a new family and an old family. He’s trying to create this whole blended family thing. So his world really is the woman he loves, the children that he loves, and his job that he loves, and then his whole world just sort of turned upside down.”

On The Walking Dead comparisons:

“That’s what I really like about everybody on the show, from the creators all the way up through to AMC — they’re really not sweating that. This is a standalone show. That one is a juggernaut. We’re not going to compete with the juggernaut. We’d be foolish to try and outdo the juggernaut, you know? That would be kind of pointless. I mean, AMC is doing pretty well with Better Call Saul. They took their first gamble on that, and so I think it’s great to have that clarity that we’re not chasing that other audience, and it’s okay if some of the audience from that show doesn’t necessarily want to follow this show. That’s okay because there will be an audience for this show, and we don’t know necessarily who they are right now, but we’ll discover it once we get online. But if you like a good show then you’re probably going to like this show.”

On how Travis will step up once the crisis begins:

“If there’s a job that needs to be done, he’ll get the job done. That’s kind of who he is. It’s just that we’re in such a bizarre situation where the scale of what’s happening is so beyond anything that he’s prepared for and the things that he has to face. He’s got a solid moral compass as well. So the whole idea of killing and gratuitous violence — he’s spent his career trying to get kids to behave and to believe in the goodness of humanity and the goodness of man and being socially minded and taking care of each other and building community. In an apocalypse, all of that falls apart, the chain of command breaks down, everything, it’s a free-for-all. It’s like all the rules have changed. The creators have gifted me this phenomenal role in the sense that he’s a good man in an impossible situation. So how do you maintain the goodness of who you are and have faith in the goodness of humanity when it’s all falling apart?”

Read more of what Cliff had to say about the show and his character Travis over at Entertainment Weekly.

Fear The Walking Dead premieres on AMC, Sunday August 23rd at 9/8c.

Photo Credit: AMC