Viewers of Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem were first introduced to the character Adil last season, when he and his sister Khalida were led from the deserts of North Western China to Fort Salem, for the medical resources to heal Khalida’s dark sickness. Now that she’s with The Hague, Adil has a lot more time to spend with army cadet, Abigail Bellweather.
In an exclusive interview with PopWire, Canadian actor Tony Giroux discusses Adil’s rocky relationship with Abigail, shooting the train scene attack, and previews what’s to come in the series’ upcoming episode.
Earlier this season on Motherland: Fort Salem, Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams) had faulted Adil for the death of the rest of his nomadic tribe, the Tarim. “Your tribe just laid down and died instead of fighting the Camarilla,” Abi told him. “My tribe was ambushed and murdered,” he responded to her. “And you of all people know how the Camarilla operate.” Hearing those words coming from Abigail was “absolutely devastating” for Adil.
“I think the reason why it’s so devastating is because he can’t help but have that doubt in him, of, oh, could he have done something,” Giroux tells us. “At the time when it happened, Adil followed his instinct of the values that he was taught, which was non-violence. But then you can’t help but think, ‘Could I have done something?’ It’s extremely, extremely triggering for Adil to hear that. It’s a truth he was trying to avoid, and then she puts it right into his face. It hurts.”
There’s still tension in their relationship when Adil heads to India. His sister Khalida (Kylee Brown) and The Hague may have found a new home for their people, and helping the survivors get settled is, what Adil feels, the least he can do. While in India, the brother-sister duo are on a government train when they and everyone else on board fall victim to a violent Camarilla attack. Filming that scene, Giroux says, was an absolute joy.
“I love shooting in studio because then it gives so much more space for the imagination of having to create circumstances,” he says. “It’s so fun to work on a set where everything’s kind of there, but we’re in a studio. We’re not really in a train that’s moving, but they’ve built this cabin, and so in those moments I just let my imagination go. It’s so much fun.”
Gregorio Shellbark (Praneet Akilla) gives the news to Abigail about the Camarilla train attack. The witch is heartbroken and upset at the same time. She recalls the moments when the Camarilla brutally killed her cousin Charvel (Bernadette Beck), nearly getting her own throat cut out, and then losing Adil, too. “It’s never gonna stop,” she says. “I’ve been attacked by the Camarilla twice. They killed General Sharma and possibly Adil and Khalida.”
Fortunately for Abigail, Adil and Khalida survived the attack. They were actually the only two who had survived. And while Khalida stayed with The Hague, Adil wanted so much to see Abigail again. When he returned to Fort Salem, Abigail ran to him for an embrace. It was a very sweet and touching reunion of the two. Giroux explains why the need for Adil to return to Fort Salem.
RELATED | “He had to see her, partly for the comfort, but also I think she’s the only person who could understand his rage towards the Camarilla,” he says. “At this point, I think he’s got so much anger and pain that has been caused by the Camarilla, that his old values of dealing with things in a diplomatic way with peaceful approaches is not working anymore. He knows that Abigail will understand and share that desire for vengeance.”
That desire for vengeance is what will fuel the two in the upcoming episodes of Motherland: Fort Salem. “Charvel set me straight,” Abigail says. “I need to get back to being me. I need to find the people who took her voice and get it back. And bathe in their blood.” They set upon a mission which leads to Abigail bringing Adil home for break, in the upcoming episode, “My 3 Dads.” As Giroux shares, meeting Abi’s family, for Adil, is a fish-out-of-water experience.
“Adil, he’s from the mountains originally — a peaceful tribe,” he explains. “[The Bellweathers] — we’re talking royalty of royalty. He feels completely out of place, but yet tries to understand what’s going on, yet at the same time, being quite overwhelmed by the situation — they’re on a mission. It’s wild just to meet one dad, and that’s already a lot of pressure, and then he meets three of them. It’s like meeting three Queens of England that you have to impress.
“It’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa. What’s going on here?'” Tony Giroux continues. “I think within that environment, it’s really fun to see how Adil deals with the situation in terms of all the emotions that come up and trying to maintain an objective of being with Abigail, but yet there being so much. His whole world really is being flipped. His values are getting tested. I’m really excited to see how it comes out on screen.”
Motherland: Fort Salem airs Tuesdays at 10pm on Freeform.
