Lesley-Ann Brandt is best known for her work in Lucifer as Mazikeen from season one to six and Lilith in one episode of season five. Now, the South African actress is a part of The Walking Dead’s spin-off, The Ones Who Live. Lesley-Ann Brandt plays the role of Pearl Thorne, a sailor for the South African Navy.
Recently, Lesley-Ann Brandt opened up about her experience while filming The Ones Who Live. She also talked about the relief she felt when she realized that her character, Pearl, was not going to be involved in any kind of love triangle on the show, which was something she absolutely did not want going into the spinoff of The Walking Dead.
Lesley-Ann Brandt Was Not Looking for a Love Triangle
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is the sixth spin-off of the original series and is set after the end of The Walking Dead. The spin-off starts with the episode ‘Years’ which introduces Lesley-Ann Brandt’s character into the franchise.
Discussing the series with TV Line during the TCA winter press tour, Brandt opened up about her character and stated that it was a huge deal for her to play a South African character on a franchise of such high caliber.
“Having an opportunity to play a South African on a huge [franchise] show was wonderful, especially one from my community. Danai [Gurira] studied in Cape Town, so she was excited too. It’s an accent you don’t hear very often. People have this idea of African accents, but it’s so different and so specific to Cape Town.”
Pearl was originally supposed to be a French character before Brandt made the creators change their minds.
She then talked about her initial worry about the show involving her in a love triangle with Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira’s Michonne. In the end, she was quite relieved that it was going to be nothing more than a platonic friendship.
“I was interested in the idea of exploring a platonic friendship in this world. I was very afraid that they would set this up as like a love triangle, and I was like I don’t want that heat. [Laughs] This is their [Rick and Michonne’s] love story, so I was happy.”
We cannot wait to see what comes next for the character!
Lesley-Ann Brandt’s Favorite Moment from The Walking Dead’s Spin-Off
Talking about the coolest things she got to do on the set of The Ones Who Live, the actress recalled her favorite moment from the entire show which happens to be her very first scene with Gurira.
“My other favorite moment is… my first scene with Danai, where it felt like two alpha women circling each other, saying things that aren’t being said but are being said. It’s like ‘game recognizes game.’ Danai has such a presence onscreen — even when she’s not saying a lot, she’s saying a lot — so I had so much fun working with [her] in that way.”
Clearly, Brandt had a lot of fun working on the first season of the spin-off. With just one episode out, The Ones Who Live has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 87% on the Tomatometer and an average audience score of 96%. Fans are absolutely loving the show!
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live can be streamed on AMC.
