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Alycia Debnam-Carey is an Australian actress known for Into the Storm (2014), The 100 and Fear the Walking Dead. Alycia was born 20 July 1993 and graduated from Newtown High School of the Performing Arts in 2011.
Alycia has appeared in several TV series including McLeod's Daughters, Fear the Walking Dead and The 100. Alycia is currently starring in Hulu series Saint X.
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EARLY START: Carey was introduced to acting by her mother, a children’s television writer in Australia. “If she needed a kid to do a little extra piece here and there I would do it. It became a fun thing to do. Then, when I was eight, I realized I loved it.”
UP IN THE AIR: Around the age of 17, Carey started thinking about moving to Hollywood, clear on the other side of the world. Without any job leads, she and her mother temporarily relocated to L.A. for six weeks, during which Carey landed a job—then a visa. “I had the most tunnel vision I’ve ever had for something ever in that period of time.”
LET GO: “The moment I stopped caring about planning my career so much, what the next move would be, I started getting better jobs.” Even in her career lulls, she never second-guessed herself enough to think of an alternative career. “There’s no back-up plan. That’s my only plan.”
IN THE BLOOD: “I used to be really squeamish, but I remember watching the first episode of The Walking Dead and being like, ‘Whoa, this is gore heavy.’ Now, every day on set, there’s something bizarre happening—like you’re in the middle of the beach, covered in fake blood and dirt, with a prop in your hand. Or you’re on a sand dune waiting for a herd of zombie . . . hundreds of them. It takes a while for them to get to you, so it’s sort of a weird moment of just standing there in blood and guts with a fake weapon, thinking, ‘What am I doing? What is this?’”
HAYLEY PHELAN: Your character Lexa on The 100 was a fan favorite. What is it like to have a cult following?
DEBNAM-CAREY: My friend asked me recently, “Do you find it weird that you are now the property of other people’s imaginations?” I hadn’t thought about that before, this passionate following, with fan fiction and artwork. At first it felt like an invasion of privacy, but then I realized it’s nice that the character can be shared.
PHELAN: What’s the biggest difference between Lexa and your character Alicia onFear the Walking Dead?
DEBNAM-CAREY: To go from playing a character that was so self-assured, so mature beyond her years, and so kick-ass and ruthless to someone who’s quite normal is interesting. Playing normal is hard; especially playing normal that’s not you. The biggest challenge in playing Alicia is trying to make a teenage girl seem fully formed and not the quintessential moody teenager with a quippy, sassy line here and there.
PHELAN: What were you like as a teenager?
DEBNAM-CAREY: Everyone sort of feels alienated at that point, so it’s hard to say whether I felt like that because everyone does or because I was so focused on acting [since the age of 8]. I did go to a performing arts school, so that facilitated my creativity, though I ended up going in a more musical direction.
PHELAN: What did you play?
DEBNAM-CAREY: I studied classical percussion for ten years. At one point I was thinking about going to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, but then I realized it’s actually not what I wanted to do.
PHELAN: If you weren’t an actor, what would you be?
DEBNAM-CAREY: I would love to do something with space. I’m obsessed with it. I just can’t stop reading about it or watching videos about it or listening to TED Talks about it.
PHELAN: Have you learned any cool facts recently?
DEBNAM-CAREY: I did. There is one living organism, called a tardigrade, that has survived the five great mass extinctions on Earth, and it can survive in vacuums in space and boiling hot water and freezing subzero temperatures.
Actress Alycia Debnam-Carey is most certainly young and beautiful, but it’s her sharp intelligence that is also propelling her success in Hollywood, writes Zara Wong. At 7.30 on a Friday morning at Sydney’s Flemington Flower Markets,Alycia Debnam-Carey is overwhelmed by the choice. It is her first time here – a long-time bullet point on a mental to-do list, as it is for me, too, even though we’re both Sydney-raised. The visit was her idea, a way to kill two birds with one stone while she’s back home visiting from LA: buy some flowers, do a Vogue interview.
Deciding between either pretty countryside florals like hydrangeas and peonies, or Australian natives like wattle and banksia, she goes for both category options. With four years as an LA resident already, where she stars in the cult series Fear the Walking Dead as well as The 100, she notices there is a wildness, a looseness, to the way flowers are displayed in Sydney compared to her second home; the land where legendary “Hollywood” florists like Eric Buterbaugh and Jeff Leatham are famed for their symmetry and rigour, the way they mould nature to create perfectly formed shapes.
“I hated LA when I first got there. It took about three years for me to like it. LA and America, in general, have this incredible hustle about them. There’s this sense of momentum,” she says enthusiastically. She is eating a vegetarian big breakfast at a local cafe after the floral excursion. “In LA, it’s not on the surface. Everything is in the cracks. The restaurant out front will look like this old, boring place and you’ll go inside and it’s this lush, beautifully designed restaurant.”
You grow up faster in Hollywood, too. But not in the way that the phrase is usually meant. At 22, her friends from high school are finishing university, becoming more independent. “They’re all doing things that I did four years ago, paying bills, finding roommates, buying a first car and figuring out these menial tasks.” Actresses – as they wont to do, especially the more lines on IMDb they receive – are always eager to play down the glamour. But for Debnam-Carey, as a rising star on television it is a full track with consistent travel and long shooting days of more than 12 hours with little time off, depending on the storyline and size of the role. “The days are very, very long, and the travel time – getting there and back.” The television shoot schedule is an accelerated form of a movie. “For a film you have the whole script in its entirety for a couple of weeks, so you can learn scenes and really rehearse them so that when you get to them, they’re more fleshed out. But TV shows are harder. You don’t really learn them as a full script, because they change the drafts quickly.” Her short-term memory has improved. “But it just means I forget things a lot quicker!”
Alycia was interviewed by Nylon, and there is even a video of her behind the scenes of the photoshoot. You can read the interview here, or read below. Make sure to check out the video too! You get to hear Alycia sing.
“With everything I do, I’m soaking wet or running through some post-apocalyptic wasteland,” says Debnam-Carey. “At first, with this, I was like, ‘I don’t know if zombies are really my thing.’ But it was such an amazing group of people, and it all fell into place really unexpectedly.”
On Fear the Walking Dead, the 22-year-old Australian actress plays a teen girl named Alicia, who is college-bound until the world begins to crumble around her. Debnam-Carey is a self-professed “fangirl” of the original Walking Dead and is overwhelmed to be part of the franchise—as long as she doesn’t get killed off too quickly. “With a show like this, at any point in time, they could do it,” she says. “Especially since this one doesn’t follow a comic book. Now shows seem to be killing every lead there is! It’s like, ‘Who can we kill next?’”
No matter the fate of her character, Debnam-Carey will land on her feet because she’s a fan first, naming Game of Thrones as one of her favorite shows (on account of the English accents). It was announced at Comic-Con this year that Debnam-Carey will be reprising her role as fan-favorite Lexa on CW’s The 100. “At first I was really focused on getting film roles,” admits the actress. “After a while I had to stop having such a white-knuckle grip on everything and just go with it and take the opportunities as they were coming. Beggars can’t be choosers. It also luckily came around the time when TV made a huge leap. TV has stopped being thought of as a second-tier medium and I’m happy to be part of that.”
Alycia was recently interviewed by amc.com. She talked about the teenage perspective during an apocalypse and shared her thoughts on the arrival of the military in Episode 3. Read the interview below, or on the amc website here.
Q: Besides sharing a name, have you found any other similarities between you and your character?
A: What I think she’s brought out of me is a street kind of quality. She’s caring and loving, but there’s a toughness to her and she’s resilient. I’d like to think I’m a little bit like that.
Q: What was it like to portray the perspective of a teenager throughout all of this? In addition to homework and college acceptance letters, now you’d have to worry about your prom date wanting to eat your brains…
A: I think it’s such an awesome opportunity and it’s a great new element to the show. It’s such a unique position to be in. You’ve got everything to look forward to and that’s one of the saddest things about Alicia. She’s got so much to lose because she had so much to gain. Nick’s character is quite the opposite. It was hard because there were times in the script where I thought, “That’s such a bratty thing to say!” As a teenager, that’s your life. It’s either all drama or complete boredom.
Q: Alicia was head over heels for her boyfriend, Matt. What’s the downside of being young in love during an apocalypse?
A: Yeah, this is a dangerous position to put yourself in. [Laughs] It’s a double-edged sword because you need to find people you love in this world to make life somewhat beautiful again, but it also means you can’t protect them the whole time. Having those attachments make you the perfect target for emotional carnage.
Q: Alicia is not aware of what’s going on at first. Would you want to be shielded by your family as well, or do you think it’s best to know what’s going on?
A: I would want to know, for sure. I’m not a teenager, so I feel like my parents wouldn’t be able to keep that information from me. I think it’s important for everyone to know what’s going on at some point. If I didn’t, it’d probably mean I’d be killed faster. I want as much of a chance as I can get! [Laughs]
Q: At the end of Episode 3, the military shows up. Would you trust them if you were Alicia?
A: Who’s to say that they are doing good and are here for you? Once civilization ends, they don’t have any reason to keep helping other people because there’s no benefit in it anymore. When something bad happens, it’s like a domino effect. Everything falls… That goes for everyone. Suddenly, you can’t trust everyone.
Q: Your character was sure to pack her headphones when the Clark family was fleeing to the desert. What would be the first thing you packed?
A: Music would be a huge thing for me, but it wouldn’t last very long. I’d probably pick something sentimental and of value, like a photograph or a necklace. Everything else doesn’t mean anything in that world.
Q: Do you think Travis made the right choice letting the Salazar’s in to their home?
A: I don’t think Alicia thinks Travis is making any good choices. [Laughs] She’s confused why he’s in the household anyway, and now he’s calling all the shots and letting other people in. There’s a crisis, though, and he’s being a generous human being.
Q: What was almost being caught from the Clarks’ infected neighbor like?
A: Surprisingly scary! That’s the joy in that. There’s so much adrenaline. You get caught up in the breathing, the running and the physicality of it. I came away with a few bruises, but it was fun to be a part of.
Q: You’re an Australian native. Would you rather be trapped during in apocalypse in Australia or Los Angeles? What are some of the pros and cons for each?
A: Definitely Australia. If there is any safe haven on this planet, Australia is in the running. We’re so isolated. It’s harsh environments, but once you’ve lived there, you know how to deal. In L.A., you only ever know the community and that’s the first thing that falls and would be hard to adjust to. Also, with the virus, good luck getting to Australia! [Laughs] We’re so far away from everyone.
Q: Do you find the apocalypse to be more frightening in the early stages or the later stages? Is there hope early on?
A: I think the initial stage is more frightening. You don’t know anything that’s going on and suddenly you’re like, “Wait. Do I have to kill this person? I just had coffee with him yesterday. They’re just sick, surely.” That was hard to film, too, because we were trying to figure out how much information we knew and how to not anticipate stuff. We know as human beings what’s coming, but these characters have no idea.
