- Warning: There are spoilers forward for “TWD: World Past” season two premiere.
- Nico Tortorella’s character Felix has a big blackout tattoo to cowl their real-life tats.
- Showrunner Matt Negrete tells Insider how they got here up with the blackout concept.
Nico Tortorella’s character has an enormous blackout tattoo on “TWD: World Beyond.”
Though we’ve seen it earlier than on season one, on Sunday’s season two premiere, Felix removes his shirt to disclose the black ink once more, which runs up the size of his left arm and partially onto his chest.
In actual life, Tortorella has dozens of tattoos, however a blackout tat isn’t amongst them.
Felix’s ink on the present was the results of a sequence of conversations showrunner Matt Negrete and “TWD” universe chief Scott M. Gimple had with Tortorella.
“It began off as principally a sensible dialog as a result of Nico has a number of tattoos,” Negrete advised Insider of the method of developing with Felix’s very massive tattoo on the “Strolling Useless” spinoff.
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In 2017, Tortorella advised In the present day Type they’ve “too many [tattoos] to count.” Most not too long ago, they acquired an elaborate tattoo that runs from the again of his neck all the way in which right down to his heel.
Initially, Negrete thought of embracing and incorporating Tortorella’s big selection of tats onto the present. Finally, Negrete didn’t suppose it will make sense with Felix’s character background.
“My first intuition was, ‘Let’s embrace them,’” Negrete mentioned. “However the extra you type of get a better have a look at them, these particular tattoos didn’t really feel just like the type of tattoos you’d get within the apocalypse. A few of them have been of Niko’s grandparents.”
“Felix is somebody … who’s very a lot separate from his household, whose household selected to not embrace him,” Negrete continued. “So it felt bizarre that after the apocalypse right here was this man who determined to immortalize his household on his arm.”
By means of season one flashbacks, viewers be taught Felix’s father failed to simply accept his sexuality and, upon discovering personal correspondences with a boyfriend, disowned him. Firstly of the apocalypse, when Felix tried to return residence, they rejected him as soon as once more.
Earlier than touchdown on a blackout tattoo, the present first tried overlaying up Tortorella’s many arm tats.
“We tried overlaying it up and it simply appeared like there’s a lot to cowl up,” Negrete mentioned, turning to Tortorella. “After we’re asking actors to do one thing with their our bodies, it’s a really private factor. These tattoos are additionally very private to Nico. I positively wished Nico’s enter on the identical time.”
The 2 began brainstorming different methods they might creatively cowl up Tortorella’s ink.
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“I overlook precisely how this got here up; the thought of only a blackout tattoo that may simply be an entire arm that’s basically a protracted sleeve. It’s simply black,” Negrete mentioned, including that the factor they appreciated in regards to the sleeve was that it felt like a mirrored image of Felix’s character.
“We leaned into it a bit in season one the place he talks about [how] he’s misplaced so many individuals and each time he type of loses somebody or one thing or part of himself, it type of turned this tattoo that turned this lengthy blackout tattoo,” Negrete mentioned of the ink’s that means, which is mentioned on the present’s fourth episode, “The Fallacious Finish of a Telescope.”
Negrete added, “It actually was this type of darkish solemn factor that he carried with him always to all the time bear in mind the individuals he’s misplaced and the issues he’s misplaced within the apocalypse. Everybody has misplaced one thing. That’s simply Felix’s method of honoring everybody from his previous that’s not with him that he cared about at one time.”
You possibly can observe together with our “The Strolling Useless” protection right here. “TWD: World Past” airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on AMC. New episodes stream per week early on AMC+.
