When The 100 returns for Season 5, fans can expect Bellamy to be playing a new role: that of mediator. At this year’s WonderCon press room, series star Bob Morley talked about the changes ahead for his character, and the challenges they presented for him as an actor.
Q: What do you like about both Bellamy and Clarke’s leadership styles?
Bob Morley: Clarke is more the rational, the head and the heart, and that combination between the two usually leads to some coherent resolution. Not always, though! But this season, Bellamy’s definitely taken on board the head and the heart aspect, cause he thinks Clarke is dead. And he says if we die up here, then she died in vain. So he’s really tried to adopt this rational approach to everything to make sure that everyone is surviving up on the ship… I think that’s his way of somehow absolving his guilt of having left her behind.
Q: Are we going to get a chance to see him play mediator?
BM: First episode, he’s mediating stuff already… With Bellamy I’m usd to him kind of not mediating but basically enforcing… I’ve said it before that he was the enforcer for Clarke and everyone else, whereas now he is more of a mediator and he approaches things with a level head… That was a tricky part for me, me getting my head around this new style of leadership for Bellamy.
Q: One of the things we haven’t heard a lot about is Bellamy and Caine… How would you describe that?
BM: Brief! Cain has a crazy story this season and… it’s interesting to see, you know? And where that character goes… Octavia’s story this season is quite heavily featured and is quite wild, but Kane’s narrative throughout the season is… I was really kind of taken back by the way that he approaches conflicts throughout the season.
Q: Can you spoil anything about Bellamy and Octavia?
BM: It’s really quite heartfelt but also in a very morbid way.
Q: There’s gonna be a lot of death in Season 5, it sounds like.
BM: Sounds like it huh? Yeah.
Q: You guys had a massive scene where you talked about the blood overflowing for miles.
BM: It’s quite a bloody season I guess… There’s also a lot of character development and all that. I’m really interested to see how people will react to this season, based on all… with the six new characters and the huge character turns that have happened over that six years. It’s kind of like a readjustment period in a way.
Q: Would you say any of the characters are in the same head space where we last saw them?
BM: Murphy.
Q: So what kind of headspace you’d say you’re in?
BM: The thing that I’ve always, always found surprising about Bellamy is that he has this sense of hope and determination and perseverance. There is part of him that, as you’ll see in the first episode, that can be a little bit frustrated by the pace of things, but for him… the huge thing for him is this mediator role.
That was hard for me to get my head around. I would talk to the writers about it, saying I don’t think this is true to him and they’re like, “He’s had six years and they’re developing this story.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but it doesn’t feel like I’m playing the same guy.”
And then as the season went on I kind of pulled off my blinkers and saw they they actually had quite a great arc for him this season, that hopefully I played it well enough and it works but it was a huge shift for me to play Bellamy that is a peacemaker in a way. Like I mentioned Kane before. It’s kind of in that vein so it’s a very foreign feel for me to play that.
Q: So is the Murphy/Bellamy bromance dead at this point or are they still strong?
BM: I feel like they’re kind of big brother/little brother. Kind of reminds me of when I was younger with my brother, and always trying to beat him and things like that. And it’s only when you get older that you can actually beat your siblings at things. When they’re like four years older than you, they’re alway stronger and bigger. I’m obviously stronger and bigger than Richard, so you know!
Season 5 of The 100 premieres Tuesday, April 24 at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central on The CW.
