Almost twenty-four hours have passed since the zombie apocalypse has struck the rural town of Mawinhaken, and the undead have been devouring every human with a pulse they can get their deteriorating hands on like a plague of hungry locus. With only three episodes left in Season 1 of SYFY’s latest original horror series Day of the Dead, PopWire caught up with the show’s talented actor Natalie Malaika in an exclusive interview.
During our chat, Natalie, who plays the series’ broody mortician and anti-hero Lauren Howell, dives into the importance of positive representation of women on television, describes Lauren’s defining character development, and shares with us what to expect for the remainder of the flesh-eater flick’s first season as it comes to a close.
A zombie story plot is not a new idea in the world of horror, but Day of the Dead brings to the table a fresh new origin story for zombies that incorporates mysticism not yet seen in the zombie universe, and with it, the George A. Romero inspired series borrows Romero’s most valuable platform objective: sociopolitical commentary. “Romero was very big on social commentary,” Natalie tells us.
“Whatever was important at that time was always embedded in his films, which is an aspect that I love; An aspect that I see has translated into our version of Day of the Dead.” In true Romero fashion, Day of the Dead creators and showrunners Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas have integrated many relevant sociopolitical topics: white settler colonialism, race, socioeconomic privilege, sexuality, and the environmental impact of fracking, just to name a few.
One social theme that hails prevalent in the zombie show’s story is the empowering representation of women. More often than not, men characters are written as the heroes of horror films and television shows, but in this SYFY series, however, it is the women who wear the hero’s cape and fulfill positions of leadership. When asked why it’s important to have a horror series like Day of the Dead airing on mainstream television, Natalie highlights a crucial element of representation as it relates to today’s youth:
“It’s important because typically [we] watch a lot of shows in [which] you see women in more submissive roles,” she says. “You [also] see this pattern of little girls mimicking things that they see on TV. I think it’s really important to show positive representation of strong, powerful women on television so that little girls will feel like it’s okay for them to be strong, it’s okay for them to be outspoken, and it’s okay for them to have an opinion. I love that the creators decided to make the women on the show very powerful and strong and badass. It’s so important for little girls to see that and to see the contrast of what has typically been put out there.”
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Natalie’s character Lauren Howell serves as a prime example of Day of the Dead’s strong leading women. After all, Lauren blazed the trail of the show’s zombie kills, being the first character of the series to take out a ravenous undead in Episode 1, “The Thing in the Hole.”
Since then, Lauren has consistently shown Day viewers that she’s just as independent and brave as she is witty and sarcastic. “Lauren is definitely the ‘lone wolf’ of the series,” Natalie explains. “She doesn’t have too many ties to people and she really stands on her own two feet and does it very well.”
Over the course of Season 1, Lauren has had a number of defining moments that contribute to her overall character evolution. Natalie shares what stands out in her mind as Lauren’s most significant transformation: “[Lauren] has only ever had to think about herself and her own wellbeing, but you get to see her start taking care of other people — and I think that’s a very defining moment. You get to see that she does have a heart.”
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The progression that Natalie references easily translates through Lauren’s newfound vulnerability with Cam McDermott (Keenan Tracey), her helping Jai Fisher (Dejan Loyola) despite their troubled history, her saving senior residents at the Grey Mile Retirement Home, and many more instances to follow.
The season’s seventh episode, “Their Evil Was Our Evil”, left fans with a thrilling cliffhanger in which a horde of hungry undead has finally reached Paymart, the department store serving as the Mawinhaken crisis center. With only three episodes left, Natalie teases that “you get to see some people grow up and come to in this new world.”
Keeping in mind that the show’s inaugural season covers a span of twenty-four hours, Natalie also remarks “how each person decides to handle this new world is going to be an interesting thing to see.” If anything is going to catalyze significant growth and change in individuals and a community, it’s going to be a viral zombie pandemic.
Tune in to the remaining three episodes of Day of the Dead’s exhilarating first season, airing Fridays at 10pm on SYFY.
