“Siren” Exclusive: Ian Verdun Talks [Spoiler’s] Death & What’s to Come for Xander

Siren‘s first significant death was teased in promos for the latest episode, “Dead in the Water.” While many aboard McClure’s North Star boat had many close calls, it seemed likely that Chris (Chad Rook) would be that big death, after he was being lured toward Donna (Sibongile Mlambo) with her siren song. Ultimately, it was Xander’s dad, Sean (Brian Anthony Wilson), who ended up in a body bag that that was thrown into the ocean.

How did Capt. Sean McClure die? He was stabbed with a spear by Levi (Sedale Threatt Jr.), a warrior merman whom we will definitely see throughout the rest of the season. Naturally, Sean’s death is is devastating for his son Xander, and to get more info about it and what’s to come, OMFGTV got on the phone with Ian Verdun to chat all about it.

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The death of Sean McClure came as no surprise to Ian, who says that he knew from the very beginning that it was inevitable. “I had actually called it that that was going to happen when we shot the pilot,” Verdun tells us. “I was like, ‘Oh, something’s going to happen.’ I actually predicted it before it actually came out.”

The death of the character hit very close to home for the Los Angeles native, who revealed to us that the year they had shot the mermaid series’ pilot episode, his father had passed away. And the Sunday before “Dead in the Water” aired on Freeform, he had lost his grandfather as well.

“For me there were a lot of very close to home personal things that I could use and it was very easy because Brian who plays my father is very charming and a very enigmatic guy.”

When he got confirmation that the story was headed in that direction, it was something that Ian personally as a performer was preparing for. “I love emotional work,” Verdun says. “It’s kind of what I do, what I went to school for. I kind of revel in it and I look forward to it because it’s such a great opportunity as an actor to just dive into emotions that for me personally I just don’t experience on a day-to-day basis.

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“When there’s somebody sitting on the ground and full of blood, there’s just a lot of energy, and the stakes are all very high,” he continues. “For me, it was all very natural and I feel really good about the work. For me I wanted to do something that was very disarming in the context of all the mer-craziness that happens in the show just to get a raw broken down moment especially for a character that’s very masculine and blue-collar and all of that stuff, so it’s able to tear all of that down and get to something human was really great for me.”

How will his father’s death affect Xander in the upcoming episodes? Verdun tells us that the event will change his character’s perspective significantly. “If you think about Donna and her experience and her perspective with humans is so skewed because of her experience being tortured basically, now just flip that through Xander.

“How would you feel if you witness this violent event on a boat and watched your father get killed by one of these things. You’re going to be very upset. For Xander, it’s really great because he does get to go through all of his stages of grief. He goes through the sadness. There’s going to be some anger.”

Siren airs Thursdays at 8pm on Freeform.