How The Walking Dead put Tom Payne on a path to becoming TV’s Prodigal Son – Stuff.co.nz

British actor Tom Payne was just about to quit acting when the zombie apocalypse saved him.

I had two months rent in my bank account, my work visa was about to run out, and I had a tax bill for $30,000 that I couldnt pay, he says.

When that was all coming to a head, The Walking Dead came along," he says. "I always tell people that you have to take these risks in this industry, and I think what sets people apart who get success, is that they are willing to put everything on the line. And the rewards are there but its definitely hard to get there.

Getting there wasnt easy.

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Tom Payne plays criminal psychologist Malcolm Bright on Prodigal Son.

He was cast as the morally centered Jesus in The Walking Dead, who met his end in Season 9.

"The day that I got The Walking Dead, that weekend I was meant to dress up in a costume as a cartoon character and give out leaflets. I had to replace myself for that job actually. Id been a regular on a TV show for a couple of years and after that job, I didnt make enough money to survive, so I took jobs here and there. People think that once youve been on a television show you're rich, and your whole life has changed but definitely NOT.

Even though the role revived his career, it wasnt at all what Payne had planned.

When I was 32 and had done a movie called The Physician, which put me with Ben Kingsley and Stellan Skarsgard, and it was my first huge lead. And I expected it to do great things for my career, and I was very proud of the movie. But it did nothing for me in America which is where I was living and where I wanted to spend my career, he recalls.

You spend a lot of time as an actor unemployed and hoping this is going to be the one, this is going to be the one. And that happened a few times over my career, but that was going to be THE one. And it wasnt... And I definitely got very despondent.

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Tom Payne spent four seasons playing Jesus on The Walking Dead.

So Payne took a trip to Sweden to visit fellow actor Skarsgard.

He gave me a really nice pep talk and reminded me why I was doing it, says Payne, and to be myself and not try to be what they wanted me to be, not to change myself and just to trust that it would come. And the next six months after that was when I booked The Walking Dead, and that was the job that changed my career.

The 38-year-old, who also co-starred in shows like Luck, Wuthering Heights and Waterloo Road, doesnt have to be killed off in series television anymore. In fact, hes very much alive as the gifted criminal psychologist in Foxs popular Prodigal Son (screening in New Zealand on TVNZ1 and TVNZ OnDemand), which is into its second season.

He plays the son of a serial killer, played by Michael Sheen.

I'm so happy to be working with Michael Sheen everyone in the cast but when I got the job, I was very aware of Michaels work and think hes a great actor, and I knew I would get better on this job, he says.

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Tom Payne, right, stars opposite Michael Sheen in Prodigal Son.

If Paynes career didnt go as planned, neither did his personal life.

He and singer Jennifer Akerman have been together for seven years, and their wedding was supposed to have taken place last April.

That didnt happen obviously because of the pandemic, and that was going to be a big change, he says. According to news reports, he and Akerman tied the knot in a quarantine wedding late last month.

It was an earlier, ill-fated romance that led to Paynes devoted union with Akerman.

Id been in a relationship for most of my 20s, and that broke up at the end of my 20s, he says.

It was really necessary for me to progress as a person, and Id spent a lot of my life concentrated on my career and not really concentrated on my private life and then when The Physician happened, I was doing this film, and I reassessed my whole life and realised that this relationship wasnt good for me. And it wasnt sustainable. And that was hard because I had to collapse a certain part of my life which I hadnt really looked at before, he muses.

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Tom Payne's Malcolm Bright uses his twisted genius to help the NYPD solve crimes.

Its easy to focus on your work at the expense of your personal life, he says.

At that moment, when I was 29, I looked at my life and made the decision that this was not good for me and I needed to move on from it. And that was a really hard time, but it definitely then shapes you as an adult really. But I just know at that time I felt really uncomfortable in my skin and I knew that. Its weird, because Ive said the same thing to [Akerman], in a different way," he says.

To that person in my life I said, I see my death in you, which is really awful, probably the worst thing Ive ever said to anyone. But then I could say the same thing to [Akerman] now and mean it in a completely different way. Its that feeling of something missing and something that you know isnt going to get better. Whereas in my relationship now, I know that everything just gets better in time if you put the work in.

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The second season of Prodigal Son is now streaming on TVNZ OnDemand. New episodes drop at 9pm on Wednesdays.

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How The Walking Dead put Tom Payne on a path to becoming TV's Prodigal Son - Stuff.co.nz