OMFGTV was presented with the opportunity to jump on the phone with The 100‘s Tasya Teles again to talk about some of our favorite Echo moments, so of course we took advantage of the opportunity! Since this wasn’t our first chat with the talented, Canadian actress, we skipped over the boring “tell me about your character” questions and jumped right into the good stuff. Let’s start with Echo’s big scene in the season’s fourth installment, “A Lie Guarded,” shall we?
The last time we spoke with Tasya she teased that episode 404 was going to be a big one for Echo, and she did not lie. In it, Echo and Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) have the sword fight of all sword fights and Echo accidentally stabs Octavia and she plummets into the swift waters below. Though she knew Octavia would inevitably survive, Tasya had a difficult time getting into character and embracing Echo’s warrior side.
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“I sank into a little bit of a funk,” Tasya tells us. She reveals that the first draft of the script had Echo kicking Octavia off the cliff on purpose, but to Tasya’s relief the writers decided to change the fall into an accident. “That was really aggressive, that made it more intentional. Whereas the better, more interesting [and softer] choice is that it’s an accident.”
Though the fight between Echo and Octavia looked super intense, it was actually a lot more lighthearted and fun during the stunt rehearsals. “I’d be sitting on the sidelines and we’d kind of tap in and out. I’d watch her fight, then go in and run my half. So we would be egging each other on.” But their time on set was a different story. “On set it was stressful. I had the makeup on and it was really high intensity.”
The fight between Echo and Octavia wasn’t the only emotionally difficult moment for Tasya during that episode. Later Echo tells Bellamy (Bob Morley) that she killed his sister, and according to Tasya that was even more difficult than thinking she killed Octavia. Teles explains how the fight scene filming was actually broken up into 2 days, so that made it less emotional. “But with Bob, it was all in one day, and that was really hard.”
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Tasya even compared her work with Bob in this scene to their work together in Mt. Weather in season 2. “Bob and I have been there before.” She adds, “That day reminded me a lot of working in the cages. That day on set was energetically very similar. It was a tough day to shoot because it was so emotionally charged.”
In contrast to the emotional “A Lie Guarded,” the next episode, titled “The Tinder Box,” has Echo taking on a much more pleasant role. Echo is a Royal Guard for the Ice Nation, and she gets to lead her warriors on horseback to battle. We asked Tasya how entering a scene like that made her feel.
“Oh my god, that was incredible!” she effuses, “I’ve never felt so important in my life! It was such a sexy picture!” Teles even compared the imagery of that scene to those in The Game of Thrones, which she felt was “amazing!”
As for Echo’s journey for the rest of the season, Teles explains that her character gets put under a lot of pressure, adding, “I think her relationship with Roan (Zach McGowan) gets challenged. Her relationship with Bellamy gets challenged. Her relationship with Octavia gets challenged. She goes through a lot of strife coming up. It’s going to be interesting to see how they decided to edit all of those pieced together, but she’s about to go through some serious pain.”
The 100 returns Wednesday, April 26, at 9pm on The CW.
