Julia Ormond, who plays Elizabeth on The Walking Dead: World Beyond, talks about taking inspiration from the wider TWD universe, the mysterious ways of the CRM and Elizabeth's strategy of gaslighting those around her.

Q: How would you characterize Elizabeth's goals since she seems to be the leader of the CRM?

A: I think Elizabeth appearing to be the leader of the CRM is missing a little bit of the detail – when Elizabeth arrives [in Episode 101], one of the first things is that they're quite shocked that it's just one person and that there aren't more people coming for the Monument Day, and that's something that Hope points out. So, Elizabeth is high up but not the top, not the very top of the food chain, and where that goes, I guess, is that you don't really know to what extent Elizabeth is a decision maker.

Q: Elizabeth is one of the most intimidating characters in the entire The Walking Dead universe even though she doesn’t actually do the kind of killing we see from other people. How do you bring that to the screen?

A: I watched a great deal of The Walking Dead and these extraordinary performances from incredibly intense, wonderfully committed actors playing characters [who] have to be intimidating. And I think what's different about Elizabeth, to me, is that when you see other characters struggling, when you see Negan running his group, intimidating his group, intimidating another group, you know that they are doing it under the duress of lack of resources. There is something sinister about the CRM because they have all of these resources and then that they're cagey about it and then that they're hidden.

There are other layers. I think, for me, what I find really sinister about sinister people is that you can't tell that they're sinister, so there's not that many indicators to go on. I think one of Elizabeth's strategies is to gaslight. That's unnerving for people like the girls who have this gut intuition not to trust Elizabeth. It shouldn't be easy to navigate whether or not Elizabeth is trustworthy. I'm trying to avoid any deliberate giveaway that this person is sinister, and there's something about it that's unnerving in that maybe they don't appear sinister.

Q: Did you know from the beginning of the season that Elizabeth is the mother of Huck/Jennifer?

A: Yeah. They don't clue us in on everything, which, always as an actor, I'm kind of chipping away at them, kind of saying, "Tell me more, tell me more." But, yes, they did absolutely tell us that.

Q: When Huck introduces herself to Elizabeth in the first episode, neither Elizabeth nor Huck reveal that they know each other or indeed are mother and daughter. Is this pretense difficult for Elizabeth or is she pragmatic enough to know this is necessary?

A: I think it's difficult because there are – for all the power that the CRM has – there are certain things that they don't have. There are certain levels of communication that they just don't have anymore, so one could presume that Huck's gotten there and they've been chitchatting on the mobile phone. That hasn't been happening.

What I remember in the moment and playing the interaction is that there is a kind of delay in terms of them getting to the point of saying hello. Underneath it all, that delay comes from Elizabeth is still a mom and there is something about arriving and being able to see that their daughter is safe. There's definitely a blip in what otherwise would be business as usual. And there's definitely that moment [of introduction] that was a hurdle for them to get over, but both of them clearly don't want to give anything away.

Q: How would you describe Elizabeth's relationship with her daughter?

A: There was clearly history that's not as happy and settled as it could be, and it's not like Huck is still in adolescence. In terms of who Huck is and what's happening, there's definitely a slight risk around giving Huck this responsibility – that Elizabeth is put on the sort of back foot of trying to have Huck's back if Huck doesn't deliver in a certain way. So, what you should get from some of the conversations that Elizabeth has with Huck is that it's not being executed necessarily in a way that it needs to be in order to stay tight. As a military procedure, it's not as complete and watertight and foolproof, every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed. There are loose ends.

They're in that kind of position where it's deeply irritating if you're an adult and your parent says, "Oh, I need to do this because you messed up." In this circumstance, you have somebody who is your senior military commander. I would come from the perspective of Elizabeth has to do what Elizabeth does. I think the piece that needs to be worked out is the degree to which Elizabeth is going out on a limb around allowances for [her] daughter.

Q: What's it like to be part of this CRM story that ties The Walking Dead universe together, especially since we learn much more about it in your storyline?

A: Yeah, it's kind of neat to come in on that level because there's been all of this build-up around the CRM and who are they? What are we going to find out? When I've watched The Walking Dead as a series, you are kind of watching it and feeling the impact of communications going down, all of these things that we rely on for everyday life. We're watching Rick Grimes and his family and these battles that are going on between these different establishments and safe havens or havens at risk and communities. There is a sense [of] "well, I wonder what's going on in Germany" or "I wonder what's going on in Asia" or "I wonder is there a stronghold that is somewhere out there." So there's definitely something about coming in with the CRM as this bigger entity.

But also you come into a story that a big part of it is that government let people down. Government were not there to help. Government failed. And you hear that in the wonderful confession point in Fear the Walking Dead where there's somebody who comes over the radio and says to people, "We're not able to help. We've let you down. We're sorry." And there's also this kind of slight sinister insinuation that even Eugene taps into. When we first encounter him as a character, we think he's onto something as a scientist but then he doesn't deliver. There is this question as to whether or not something was government-generated, bioengineered. Is there some entity out there that knows what this was, what this is, how to cure it?

So this idea that these kids have given up their dad to something that intuitively they are anxious about and nervous about and [there are] helicopters, it's kind of like, well, why can't they see him? Why can't they communicate? What's the need for the secrecy? It's the secrecy piece of it that I think makes it suspicious for the kids because why does it need to be so secret? And it feels brutal. There is a tone to it that that separation of family, in the name of sacrifice, tells us something about the CRM and it tells us something about the people within it and the leadership style and the politics behind it. What's the philosophy politically behind that approach? And so what we find out about in The Walking Dead: World Beyond is that there is this force out there that could be overwhelming to these other characters that we've come to know and love in The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, that suddenly could turn tables on people. So if we get it right, there's something about learning about The Walking Dead: World Beyond that sets up an existential threat for the others.

Q: What are Elizabeth's initial impressions of Iris and Hope from the first episode?

A: We haven't found out yet exactly what was going on between Elizabeth, Iris and Hope and between the CRM and the family of this scientist who is possibly going to find a cure – or what is it that they've taken him away for or to do. So I think when Elizabeth first encounters [Iris and Hope], it's much more that she has an agenda and so she's doing a kind of intuitive assessment or a much more just in real time assessment of "how am I going to deal with these people? What's the best emotionally intelligent way to bring them along with my agenda? How do I get through to them?"

Q: Elizabeth's discussion of "loose ends" in the last episode is chilling. Why is she so determined that the others in the group need to be dealt with?

A: I think that will become clear moving forward. You know, it's funny – it's one of those things where I feel should I be unpacking that for people or should that be part of the story? We don't actually know at the beginning, when we see that massacre and when we see the genocide, we don't really know what's happened, what's going on. You see that come out in the next episode where Barker comes and they have the discussion. You don't really know what Huck knows, so I think those are things that are sort of left in the air. When Elizabeth talks to Huck about loose ends, Elizabeth has more information that potentially Huck doesn't, and we don't know what that is.

Q: Elizabeth talks about being brave, but she cries at the end of Episode 3 after dealing with Sergeant Barker. Does that bravery come at a price?

A: Yes. Bravery to me is not about not feeling fear. It's about feeling the fear and facing it. And that's true for Elizabeth as much as it is for anybody else on the planet. But what we don't know necessarily is what aspects of what happened is Elizabeth upset about.

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