Posted in: AMC, Fear The Walking Dead, TV | Tagged: fear the walking dead, mo collins

Fear the Walking Dead Star Mo Collins on Playing Comedy in a Drama

Mo Collins spoke with us about her time on AMC's Fear the Walking Dead and the challenges of knowing when to bring comedy to the drama.

Mo Collins has long established herself in the comedy scene in her nearly three decades of work since her debut in the 1996 holiday classic Jingle All the Way. She's done it all on TV, from sitcoms, dramas, animation, and even occasional films. With memorable roles in Universal's The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Fox's/The CW's weekly late-night variety series Mad TV, and a recurring stint on NBC's Parks and Recreation, Collins demonstrated quite the range on the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead, which largely operates as a prequel spinoff to the original Robert Kirkman series The Walking Dead. While promoting her appearance on Night Court, the actress spoke to Bleeding Cool about her role as Sarah Rabinowitz, the former U.S. Marine and truck driver-turned-bodyguard to June Dorie (Jenna Elfman) appearing in four of the eight seasons from 2018-2022, and what it meant to challenge herself and to "bring light to the dark."

Fear the Walking Dead Star Mo Collins on How the Apocalyptic Series Allowed Her Another Way to Infuse Her Comedy

Bleeding Cool: With your work on 'Fear the Walking Dead,' what was it like to be part of that franchise? In what ways did it challenge you as an actor?

Oh, great question. It's probably one of the hardest jobs I've ever done, literally and physically. It was a real challenge. We're doing 16 hour-days out, and we weren't comfortable, I'll tell you that. It wasn't about being comfortable, but the playground was amazing if you think about it. To immerse yourself in that apocalyptic world was invigorating. It was cool to attach yourself to the character and see, kind of like, where do you stand in terms of being a survivor, right? To muster that up in yourself. It's a good place to look. It's a good thing to look inside yourself and say, "What am I made of, right? What's my meddle?" That was really cool, and then the other challenge for me was coming from traditional comedy; as I've done, I was hired to bring light to the dark, right? It is still a drama, so the way you play comedy in a drama is very different. Of all the places, that's someplace I didn't want to be laughed at, do you know what I mean? Not doing comedy wrong, so it was a good comedy challenge, too.

Was it too hard not to resist being too cynical in that, or as far as the nature of the show?

The cynicism is in the writing [laughs]. There was a lot of joy on the set, too, because when you are immersed in a situation like that, working that hard in those conditions, you, your fellow actors, and the crew were all much a part of it. There's no ignoring the crew. They're part of this struggle in this family, and we all work together. There was a lot of love and joy, too, but that came from each other because it was difficult and challenging.

Fear the Walking Dead, which also stars Colman Domingo, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Danay Garcia, Rubén Blades, and Lennie James is available to stream on AMC and Netflix. Night Court. which stars Melissa Rauch, John Larroquette, Lacretta, Nyambi Nyambi, Gary Anthony Williams, and Wendie Malick, airs Wednesdays and is available to stream on Peacock.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!