Kim Coates reacts to Bruegel’s fiery “Strolling Useless: Useless Metropolis” destiny in season 2 finale

Properly, he did say time and again how a lot he needed the methane. And, in the long run, he received it.

Kim Coates’ Bruegel was lastly profitable in acquiring the methane gasoline he so desperately sought on the season 2 finale of The Walking Dead: Dead City, however not in the best way he envisioned. Bruegel discovered himself on his knees subsequent to Armstrong (Gaius Charles) in a basic Negan lineup. Despite the fact that Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character ended his eeny-meeny-miny-moe on Armstrong, the person with the barbed wire-covered baseball bat determined to name an audible. “ what? F— it. You’re the man I actually need to kill first,” Negan mentioned to Bruegel.

After as soon as once more listening to Bruegel’s pleas concerning the electrical energy of the methane, Negan had sufficient. “The methane. The goddamn methane,” Negan responded. “That’s all you speak about. You actually need the methane that unhealthy? Take it.” And with that, he put a methane pump into Bruegel’s mouth and lit a torch by it earlier than watching his adversary burn from the within out and eventually smashing his head in with Lucille.

It was a brutal finish for Bruegel, one of the crucial thrilling additions to The Strolling Useless franchise in years. That’s primarily attributable to an unbelievable, idiosyncratic efficiency by Coates. Leisure Weekly sat down with the Sons of Anarchy veteran to debate his character’s fiery finish.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s begin with the top. Do you know whenever you first took the job about Bruegel’s premature demise within the finale?

KIM COATES: It's an excellent query, as a result of it's slightly sophisticated. I do know that it was a yr in the past, in April, that my folks mentioned [showrunner] Eli Jorné has written a component for you as a nasty man. Come on board only for the season. I learn the primary episode after which the fourth episode, which was a really heavy Bruegel episode, and I signed on immediately. They had been dailies day by day and checking this out and doing their factor. And Jeffrey Dean Morgan and I are hooked up on the hip, and I grew to like Lauren Cohan as nicely, and Lisa Emery.

I don't know if it was perhaps the fifth or sixth episode when Eli would simply say to me, “Boy, we're having a extremely exhausting time going by way of with killing Bruegel.” And I took that as a praise, clearly. And I do suppose that Bruegel has introduced some actual spice to the season, and I believe that you simply want that. I do know in Sons of Anarchy, we had our three high leads, then 10 of us lead actors. And man, when a visitor individual got here in for a season to pop issues, it simply made folks need to watch it much more.

So I at all times knew Bruegel was not going to make it by way of to the top. I at all times knew that that dying scene was going to be memorable for everyone who watches the present. I used to be unhappy to say goodbye, however I knew it was coming and I used to be fully advantageous with it.

So what do you make of the dying by methane?

It's like Dracula getting bit by one other vampire and sucks in his personal cold physique. I imply, all Bruegel talked about was the methane for the entire season with these conniving little humorous, harmful plots that he had occurring in his good thoughts. I knew that the methane would in all probability come again to chunk him within the ass, and it positive did. And that was a enjoyable day, man. We needed to be very cautious shoving that hose in my cheeks, and Jeffrey was tremendous protected and I'm at all times protected after I'm working. So the stunt staff did an excellent job with that.

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I’m assuming the dying was a mixture of some sensible results together with stuff added in postproduction. How do you act like you’re burning from the within?

It was unbelievable. The make-up staff had been phenomenal. I used to be in that make-up chair for hours and hours and hours getting completely different levels of the burn make-up. When Bruegel was trying out of this planet, they’d little pumps that will pump my face and these large balls in sacks that they’d glued on and painted it onto my face to make it seem like I used to be reverberating with methane.

So it was an actual deal. And after I was laying down on the bottom there within the cement, I imply, how do you die by methane? How do you cease respiration from methane or what does it do? Does it explode your face? So me and Mikey Satrazemis, the director, would speak about that they usually simply let me go and do my factor. And I believe what got here out in the long run was actually dynamic and brutal, and I believe it labored very well.

What was it like on set with Jeffrey and Gaius doing the Negan lineup with you and Armstrong in your knees?

I didn't prefer it. [Laughs] I didn't prefer it in any respect. However I believe, boy, whenever you get a man like Bruegel, and Armstrong for that matter, being surrounded by henchman with weapons and tasers and baseball bats and maces and issues like that, he nonetheless thinks he's going to speak himself out of it. And when he realizes he can't, that's it. The ship's sailed and there's nothing left to do aside from to die. And in order that's what I attempted to do and make it plausible.

Boy, oh boy, I received to advert lib a lot on this present. I imply, Eli’s writing was so good and all people cherished it a lot. I actually did. However after they employed me, they knew what they had been going to get, and I went off, and I believe I went off in that scene as nicely. I can't keep in mind what I mentioned. I can't wait to see it once more.

Bruegel was a unique cat, only a completely different wavelength. Completely different New York downtown, CEO hedge fund billionaire a–hole who comes out of his bunker and has this staff. I referred to as my gang the Silk Stockings. I don't suppose it was used a lot within the present, however that's advantageous. They had been my little Silk Stockings. They had been so fairly and with all their armor on on a regular basis. And we had been the most important gang on the town and we had been completely different for that present. So I'll always remember doing it.

You simply talked about Bruegel's previous. How a lot did you consider his pre-apocalyptic backstory by way of his life at the beginning went to hell?

I believed so much about it. I learn a few books about this hedge fund man and what it means to lift and lie for a lot cash that you simply don't even know what to do with that cash. On the finish of the day, different folks's cash that simply grows and grows and grows, and should you're profitable at it, which I imagine Bruegel in all probability was, he had paintings up the wing wang.

He cherished historical past. He lives on the Met, as you already know. I used to be very fortunate to have the ability to go to the Met earlier than I began filming, they usually actually let me dangle round after hours and really feel it and take up it. And that portray of George Washington crossing the Delaware is clearly 5 occasions the scale because it was on our present, however the reproduction on the present I believed appeared wonderful. So Bruegel is only a conniving, good, humorous, sarcastic, cowardly prick. And whenever you want somebody like that, yeah, name Kim Coates!

I assume they only didn't have time with solely eight episodes, however I want we may have seen a flashback episode with the pre-apocalypse model of Bruegel.

That’s so good, Dalton, as a result of that's what folks say. And, after all, you don't take time for that since you're making an attempt to forged it, then you will have your leads, after which you will have me visitor starring as a lead within the present. After which the place are we going to movie it? And we're not going to go to Jersey this yr. We're going to go to Boston. You need to prep all that stuff. There's no time, except we did 13 or 14 episodes, then perhaps you would delve into one thing like that.

Like we did in Sons of Anarchy, proper? The third season of Sons, we went to Eire. Nobody believed that we had been going to really go to Eire, however we actually didn't go till that third season after we knew the present was already a large hit. However yeah, that will've been humorous to see Bruegel strutting down Manhattan.

You knew it was coming the complete time, however is it robust to say goodbye to a personality like this now that it's all finished?

No, not likely. I’ll always remember American Primeval. I'll always remember taking part in that man. I'll always remember taking part in Bruegel, or Tig Trager — always remember it. Double Down South in Atlanta with Tommy Schulman, an Oscar winner for Useless Poets Society, Lili Simmons — I'll always remember them. So I believe my experiences, they actually have been good ones, however no.

I will miss not seeing Jeffrey and Lauren and the staff as a result of it was particular. However I believe it sort of helps understanding that you simply're going to go on the finish of the season earlier than you begin. what I imply? You may put it into part of the bookshelf that you already know you're going to go. So simply let's get pleasure from it alongside the best way and create some actual big-time artwork hopefully for folks. And I believe we did that. I actually do.

This interview has been edited for size and readability.

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