‘The Walking Dead’: Robert Patrick Breaks Down His Meaty Guest Role

You probably know actor Robert Patrick from dozens of roles on TV and film, from playing the T-1000 in Terminator 2, to John Doggett on The X-Files, to guest star appearances on, well… Almost everything. But even the most die-hard fans might not have realized it was Patrick playing Mays, the heavily scarred, dirt-encrusted, half-mad apocalypse survivor on this week’s episode of The Walking Dead.

“[We had] great discussions on how the look was going to be for this guy,” Patrick told Decider. “We went through a lot of tests and different looks, I was very concerned about appearance and wardrobe and hygiene and smell … It was just one of the juiciest roles I’ve read with such an unbelievable arc, and I wanted to tell that story.”

Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 19, “One More” past this point.

In the episode, which is one of the grimmer entries the series has executed in a long, long time, Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) have been on the road for two weeks searching for supplies, thanks to a map provided by Maggie (Lauren Cohan). So far, their search has turned up nothing but the dead, and the weary duo is at wits end. That is until they find a warehouse not marked on Maggie’s map.

In the seemingly empty warehouse, they discover a boar locked in a room, which a terrified Aaron is forced to kill. Not only that, but they also discover a deck of cards, and a $2,000 bottle of whiskey. Over the course of the night they eat roasted boar, play cards, get absolutely wasted, and debate the existence of faith in the zombie apocalypse.

The next morning, Gabriel wakes up with a splitting hangover, and discovers that Aaron is gone. That’s when he meets Mays, played by Patrick, who asks him how the boar tasted. Slowly, ominously, Mays reveals info to Gabriel as he eats a plate of boar: that was his boar, his whiskey, his cards. Gabriel appeals to his faith, as Mays has bibles all over the warehouse, but Mays defers, noting that he uses the pages as toilet paper.

Over the course of the next half hour, things build to Aaron (who has been captured by Mays) and Gabriel being forced to participate in a Russian roulette game by Mays, and they can either kill themselves or the other person, but only one is making it out alive. Aaron finally manages to appeal to Mays’ better nature, only for Gabriel to immediately kill him. The reason? Mays explained that he killed his brother and his brother’s family for taking his stuff.

That’s not exactly true, though, and the last, grim kicker is that Mays has kept his twin brother — also played by Patrick — chained to the wall for years, the rotting corpses of his family right beside him. Mays, it turns out, forced his own twin to play the game, and he couldn’t take his own life: he killed his family, instead. Thanks to a gun stolen from Gabriel, Mays’ twin kills himself, and Aaron and Gabriel leave the warehouse to continue exploring at least “one more” location.

Whew. It’s a lot to take in, and according to Patrick was just as meaty (no insult to the deceased boar) to film, as it was to watch. Read on to find out what he had to say about playing Mays opposite Marquand and Gilliam, whether he’d come back for a Mays origin story, and most importantly: what did the boar taste like?

Decider: Before we get too into it, how did the boar taste?

Robert Patrick: Oh, the boar was pork. It was pulled pork. It was the right flavor. A little greasy. I did enjoy the hell out of eating it though. I gotta tell you whenever you get to chomp and have bad manners, and you know, be loud, chew on your food… it’s fun. Eat with your fingers.

Okay, taking a step back… I imagine it’s always a weird thing to pop into an established cast for one episode, but shooting in COVID has to be even stranger. What was your experience like and how did you end up getting approached for the role?

Sherry Thomas and Sharon Bialy cast the show and I’ve worked with them many times over the years. They presented it to us as an offer and I read it immediately. And said “I’m in.” It was a dynamic character… If you’re gonna come in and do one episode, have a character that has such an arc, steady things to play. They really set it up to be a very iconic character and it was just beautiful, the way it was written. I literally read it once and had a very visceral reaction to it, so I’m in. Atlanta is my hometown, my birthplace. So anytime I get a chance to get back there, I take it. So I’m grateful that I get to film there.

COVID was interesting. I didn’t get to meet everybody. I kind of was isolated. I drove myself to work, which was fun, actually, I prefer that. They kind of kept me isolated from anybody and everybody that I wasn’t working with… [We had] great discussions on how the look was going to be for this guy. We went through a lot of tests and different looks, I was very concerned about appearance and wardrobe and hygiene and smell. I just went that way. So physically, I was very interested in the makeup and how that was going to be as far as the character and what I read. I mean, it was just all there. It was just one of the juiciest roles I’ve read with such an unbelievable arc, and I wanted to tell that story.

All these bonus episodes The Walking Dead has been doing have been very tightly focused, but this one in particular, having just you, and Ross Marquand, and Seth Gilliam doing this Deer Hunter Russian roulette thing… It had to be almost like performing a play in a certain way.

Absolutely, you are absolutely right, Alex, it’s exactly what it felt like. Look, you know, you read it, and you go, okay, so there’s some practical stunt kind of things happening here. There’s gunshots, so they’ll probably stop there. So we’ll shoot that part of the scene, right? That’s what I was kind of thinking in my head. I’ve got to go get him out of the office and bring it back and settling down, then we’ve got to do the practical stuff, the pistol bullets. We’ve got to do all that. So they’ll probably cut in there. And I sent a message to [Director Laura Belsey] saying, “are we in fact going to shoot it with these cuts in place?” and she said, “no, we’re going to do it as a one-y.” And I was like, “why?” And Alex, exactly, this is like we’re doing a play.

So you got to really be on your game. You know, you got to be able to tell that story to the beginning, middle and end. We did a read through after the boys, Seth and Ross had worked a full day, they’re pretty tired. But we all came in and we got on the set. We met, and we ran through it. And much to all of our delight, we found out that we were all off-book and ready to play. So our preparation paid off.

You also play your own twin on the show. What was it like switching from Mays to his scruffy, terrified brother?

I didn’t give this terrified, scruffy brother much thought. I really didn’t. I did give a lot of thought to the dynamics, the betrayal of brothers, one brother letting down another brother. And I understand it. I had brothers, and I know what that’s like, I know that disappointment. The twin aspect sort of heightened that. What that must be like, so I understood that.

When we approached the appearance of the guy, he was supposed to be gaunt, obviously didn’t get to eat well and had been chained up on that wall for… How many years? We don’t know, a long time. But if you judge by the length of his hair, we wanted something really drastic like that. So I really pushed for the long hair. And I approached it from: he was a shelter dog. How dogs that are mistreated by humans, how they react when they get put into a shelter, and they’re in a cage, and they’re afraid of humans. That was pretty much the only thought I gave the guy… He was hostile, he was scared. He would bite you if he got a chance, which, taking the gun from [Father Gabriel] was that opportunity. What he really wanted to do is just take his own life because it couldn’t stand misery anymore.

It’s impossible as a viewer to watch the Russian roulette “game” without thinking about: What choice would I make in that situation? Is that something you talked about on set? What would you do?

Well, that’s a tough situation. I mean, it’s just like [Mays] said, and that’s what I think is so compelling about this episode that it makes you think about the stress of the environment in the world they’re in. The stress they’re already under, the fact that Mays has already lost his faith… We know that he had a strong belief in God but he’s lost it, he’s lost his faith and I can’t think of anything more depressing than that. And that’s what God is in your life, God is hope. If you’ve lost hope, which is in [Gabriel’s] monologue, what would you do?

And in this time of this pandemic, people and uncertainty and losing their jobs and losing loved ones… God hoped none of us get to that point where taking our life is the answer. But you can certainly see how it could pop in there, and you might consider it. I think that’s what was so interesting about it.

I don’t want to overthink things. I react emotionally as an actor. So I try not to overthink things and get too many thoughts in my head and just go along with my feelings. I think the main thing about the Russian roulette was he’s trying to prove that his brother and he are just like anybody else. And [Aaron and Gabriel] are just just like my brother. You’re just like my fucking Brother, you’re just a murderer, you’re gonna steal from me and kill me? Because my brother tried both. You guys, in the same fucking way? I’m gonna push you to that point and see if that’s what you want. In fact, neither one of the guys pointed the gun at the other. Which is fascinating. Neither one was willing to kill the other guy. They were both willing to take their own life.

Mays’ fate is pretty definitive by the end of the episode, but there is a Tales from The Walking Dead anthology coming up in a few years. Would you ever come back for a Mays origin story?

This was just a wonderful show in the franchise, and great people involved, and great actors. And I’m open for anything and everything. So I would never say no. I’m interested in telling great stories. And they certainly have a great way to tell great stories. Yes. So absolutely I’d be interested.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.

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