From has always been really good about delighting us with mix-and-match character pairings, and this season, we’ve seen Jade and Tabitha, Sara and Victor, Henry and Victor, and Kenny and Acosta team up. As Ellis, Corteon Moore has spent a chunk of time this season paired up with Pegah Ghafoori as Ellis and Fatima navigated the maybe-baby debacle. That arc has also allowed Ellis to reconnect with his father, Boyd (Harold Perrineau), and put him in close contact with Elgin (Nathan D. Simmons), without realizing he knows more than he’s letting on. Recently, I chatted with Moore about the twists and turns of Season 3, and finding joy in the absurd.
Resuming production so soon after the conclusion of the strikes last fall didn’t give Moore much time to prep when they returned t Halifax last winter. “I knew absolutely nothing, the least that I think I have ever known in my life. I knew we were renewed, but then by the time we actually found out we were gonna go back to work, I think I only had two weeks. This was the shortest amount of time we had between [being called back and starting production] because of the strikes and everything else going on in the winter,” he recalls.
“I didn’t read the scripts until just before we started shooting. I think the only thing I really knew was that I was playing a character named Ellis. That was it. I just walked in blind. [And some of the plots this season] were devastating.”
Ellis and Boyd spend more time together this season as Boyd tries to counsel his son about a situation eerily similar to the one he found himself in with Ellis’s mom when the town broke her, and Moore was excited to share those scenes with Perrineau. “It was really great. Harold has been one of my favorite actors ever since I was a kid. I remember seeing him in Romeo and Juliet. I remember seeing him in The Matrix. I remember seeing him in Lost. And so anytime I get to be around him, I’m happy,” he sh
“But anytime I get to step in front of a camera with him is really such a magical experience. And it really kind of sets something inside me on fire. So this season, getting to spend the time that we spent together, it was really great. I remember some days I would show up to set and I’d be really nervous because we’d have such a massive scene.”
“When he tells me about the Parkinson’s, I remember showing up really nervous. But the second the two of us sat down and looked at each other, everything kind of went silent. And for the rest of that day that we were shooting that scene, I was just sitting with my dad and my dad was telling me some horrible news and I had to work through it.”
“And that’s just the benefit of working with a very talented actor. They take away all the distraction. They take away all of your insecurity or whatever you may be dealing with, and it just becomes you and the person that you’re sitting with and this circumstance that you’re playing with. I find that to be a really, really great gift. And he’s really great at giving that to myself or anybody that he is working with. And he’s just a legend. He is the best.”
In last week’s episode, Elgin accompanies Ellis to look for Fatima while the audience knows Elgin took her. Moore enjoyed getting to work with his friend again, and watch him at work while he delivered a duplicitous performance. “Nathan is another person that I’ve been wanting to work with since we met. And before this, the only time we really got to work together is when he told Boyd that Fatima was pregnant and when he saved my life. So that, that was really it. And both of the times I didn’t really say anything to him,” he explains.
“He’s a guy that I spent a lot of time with off of set, but I very rarely get to see at work. So it was cool to see how he maneuvered on a set and kind of switched in and out of his character. And those were also luckily days that weren’t very cold, and I remember it was beautiful out. So to get the chance to spend a few days together, just the two of us on set… First of all, he is the funniest guy ever. Second of all, he is a really, really talented actor. And he plays all of those layers about his character really, really well, and in a cool, nuanced way. So it gave me a lot to react to.”
“And I had to go digging to figure out what he was hiding. He didn’t really show it. It was more of like, ‘Oh, you just did something with your hand there that was unnatural and it made me feel like maybe you’re fidgety or why are you not right while you’re talking to me?’ All of these things that I guess in real life Ellis would kind of pick up on.”
“And he was really good at just being there with me. People kind of underestimated Elgin and they cast him off to the side. So it was cool for my character, who is still working through it, but a bit of a hothead and is a bit of a know-it-all in some sense, is going off with this guy who would never really hurt a fly.”
“And neither of them are really connecting and Elgin is trying to talk to me and I’m like, ‘Man, you don’t know anything. Who are you? What are you telling me this story of this kid that went missing?’ But then things slowly start to reveal themselves. And I’m [realizing], ‘Oh, maybe you actually aren’t completely lost. Maybe you actually know way more than you should know.’ And then I think we see the wheels start turning in my brain and then I devise a plan.”
There’s no doubt that this season has been bleak, yet Moore says he delighted in filming a scene in the premiere, when Randall makes a play for the livestock and Boyd and Ellis stop him. “I think the most fun I had this season is when me and Harold had to step up to Randall to get the goat back. That was my favorite. I got to say, ‘Just give him the goat, man,'” he laughs.
“I just love that line because it was not even in the script. And Jack Bender, our director, just told me to say it. And I remember, I thought that was the funniest line ever. ‘Just give him the goat.’ I knew that my friends were gonna like it. And when I was with some of my friends at the premiere and I said that line in the episode, my best friend Devonte turned to me and said, ‘Just give him the goat man.’ He did an impression of me immediately. So my friends just say it to me all the time and I remember in the moment thinking, ‘Oh, this is gonna be really cool.'”
From Season 3 airs Sundays linearly at 9pm/8c on MGM+ in the US and on Paramount+ via Prime Video subscription channels in Canada. It drops on the MGM+ app at 12:01 am ET. All S1 and S2 episodes are available in the US on MGM+ online and via the app and on Prime Video, and on Paramount+ in Canada. ICYMI, all of our previous coverage — almost 40 pieces — is here. Check back this week for my preview of Sunday’s season finale and new conversations with Harold Perrineau and Scott McCord.
Photos courtesy of Chris Reardon/MGM+.
