Posted in: HBO, streaming, TV | Tagged: cyborg, doom patrol, exclusive, interview, Phil Morris, Silas Stone

Doom Patrol Star Phil Morris on Silas Stone's Cyborg Motivations

When it comes to one of the most interesting family dynamics to the DC live-action multiverse, it's the complicated relationship between Silas Stone (Phil Morris) and his son, Victor Stone (Joivan Wade) on the HBO Max series Doom Patrol. As revealed in the series, Victor became Cyborg following an explosion that left him near death. As a cyberneticist, Silas was able to save him but left him permanently changed in biomechanical form. While promoting his latest supernatural film Ghosts of the Ozarks, I spoke to Morris about Silas' complicated and fragile relationship, making amends to his son, and the backstory he worked out.

Much of Silas' story is tinged with regret from the loss of his wife Elinore (Charmin Lee), the physical and psychological scars left behind on his son, his own personal guilt of choosing one or the other that carried over to his future work including refusing to help work on Cliff (Brendan Fraser), and much more. To sort it out, he recruited his co-star to work out the backstory to help drive Silas' motivation.

"We did an improvisation at her house about Victor and my relationship with Victor, and we were having this conversation, just an improvisational conversation," Morris explained. "She started, 'You have to take care of him.' I said to her, 'You don't know you're not here, you're dead. You don't get it. He's an intergalactic fucking trouble, excuse me, trouble, and I'm doing the best that I can.' She says, 'You have to be better.' I said, 'You don't know, you don't get it.' This is in her kitchen. 'You don't get it. I'm trying to keep him safe from this and that in the third. It's just it's beyond my control.' She says to me simply this actress. She says, 'You have to be better.' When she said that to me, I started crying, sobbing. I was uncontrollable, I told my co-star, 'Baby, I will be' so everything you see Silas do is to placate and make his dead wife happy. Victor doesn't need to know. Victor doesn't need to understand. She doesn't need to know. The audience doesn't need to know. Silas knows. This is my legacy to my dead wife to try to keep this young man as safe as I possibly can."

As far as how things ended between Silas and Victor, Morris admits there's a lot more to do for the next season. "I think that you'll see a lot more. I think that with Silas was trying to do at the end of season three is to mend fences, create understanding, fall on his sword a little bit, apologize for how he's been. If you saw the last season, Victor didn't take it very well." XYZ Films' Ghosts of the Ozarks is available on-demand and digital.

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