“You’ve got this apocalypse thing.”
That’s what season 3 Addy would tell season 1 Addy, Anastasia Baranova told OMFGTV in an exclusive interview. The Z Nation star debated a few possible answers to the question, asked by Makaia (@lethalreedus) on Twitter, saying, “well, do you try to protect her, cause you know what’s coming? So something about, like, ‘hey, don’t go crazy’? Or, no—I’d say, just, that everything will be okay. That it will work out. Just keep fighting, you’ve got it. You’ve got it, girl! That’s what I’d tell her: ‘You’ve got this apocalypse thing.’”
We talked a lot about the plot of season 3 of Z Nation in the first part of this interview, which you can read here, so this time, we’ve got a bunch of fan questions and other non-plot-related questions!
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Another fan (@imaginarypoet on Tumblr) wanted to know how Anastasia’s interactions with fans have changed since she came out as bisexual, and if she gets much of a response from the LGBT+ community about how her character and her openness has impacted them. Anastasia shared that she’s learned about the importance of representation through it—”It’s for people out in the world to have somebody who’s in some sort of a public forum talk about something that is private and personal, but also is true for them, and it resonates with them . . . it’s representation, and being like, ‘oh, well, I’m not the only weird kid who likes boys and girls and whatever—somebody else who’s doing well in life, they are too, that’s great!’”
While it hasn’t necessarily been what Anastasia expected, the experience has overall been positive. “I want people to embrace who they are, and the entirety of who they are, and to love and accept that,” she continued. “That’s why I make it a point for Addy to be smart and funny and vulnerable and strong—she’s a human, she’s a whole human, and you can watch her, and be like, ‘Oh, I’m a whole human! Oh, that’s good! We can all just be humans!’”
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I’m sure you’re all wondering what Anastasia’s favorite zombie kill has been so far is. The answer? “It’s gotta be the egg beater, just for its pure gruesomeness.”
Addy’s Z Whacker is super iconic and unique, and Anastasia told all us about the different versions of it: “We have a practical one, that’s actually full metal, and it’s real. It’s really sharp, and you can probably kill somebody with it. We use it very very seldom. And then I have 3 or 4 rubber ones. Season 2 was definitely rough on the Z Whacker, when we broke it at the end there, it took a pretty savage beating and all the spikes were missing.” They’ve gone through about 4 Z Whackers over the course of the show.
If Addy had to die, Anastasia has given a lot of thought to how she would want her to (question from @johnandrasjaqobis on Tumblr). “I definitely would prefer Addy’s death to be something like, you know, heroic and dramatic. At this point, we’ve established her to be a really capable fighter, you know, she’s smart, she’s quick on her feet, she’s really strong, so she can’t die just because she wasn’t paying attention, and then suddenly got bit, or because somebody was a more skilled warrior than she was.”
We can’t imagine a more skilled warrior than Addy existing in the apocalypse! “So I think the best way for her to go would be like, a betrayal from somebody who the group trusted, and then they did something really messed up, or dying for the cause! You know, either saving somebody, or doing whatever the mission required her to do. That would be a good way for her to go. Something to honor who she’s been throughout the show and how hard she’s fought.”
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Anastasia had her own television show, called Scout’s Safari, while she was in her early teens. But that wasn’t her first acting job. What was the first thing she ever acted in? “Well, on television, it was Lizzie McGuire. I had a guest star on Lizzie McGuire, and then I had a TV show. I can’t remember if this was before or after, but I was also Sandy in Grease.”
You might not know it, but Anastasia was on Drake and Josh (she says that a surprising number of adults know that, though they try to claim that their knowledge isn’t because they were watching Drake and Josh as adults), and actually had her first on-screen kiss in the episode she guest-starred in, “We’re Married?!” At the request of my friend, Rachel, I asked Anastasia about her time on the show. “I really love that kind of big comedy, where you can just do physical comedy, and accents, and silly stuff, and they definitely leave space for that,” she answered. It seems that several of Nat Zang’s (10K) friends are fans of Drake and Josh, because they immediately recognized Anastasia from the episode!
If she had to pick between Drake and Josh, Anastasia would pick Josh as her apocalypse teammate, “cause you need a good attitude in the apocalypse! You know, there’s a lot going on, it’s a depressing time. So you need somebody positive.”
Speaking of the apocalypse, if the zombie apocalypse were to break out, and the first item to her left was her weapon of choice . . . “Well, right now, I’m sitting next to my girlfriend, Jessica, and she is a badass, so right now, if it’s the first day of the apocalypse, and the first object to my left is my weapon, I would fare extremely well. Plus, she’s very attractive, so that’s good. And yeah, she’s a total badass, so it would be like, two redheads take on the apocalypse together—that actually would be super cute! Yeah, we got a good idea going.”
Be sure to catch Anastasia kicking butt in Z Nation, Fridays at 9/8c on Syfy!