Before zombie walkabout, Payne was done with acting
NEW YORK — 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 couldn’t 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 it’s definitely hard to get there.”
Getting there wasn’t easy.
He was cast as the morally centered Jesus in “The Walking Dead,” who met his end in season nine.
“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. I’d been a regular on a TV show for a couple of years, and after that job, I didn’t make enough money to survive, so I took jobs here and there. People think that once you’ve 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 wasn’t 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 wasn’t.”
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 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 costarred in shows like “Luck,” “Wuthering Heights” and “Waterloo Road,” doesn’t have to be killed off in series television anymore. In fact, he’s very much alive as the gifted criminal psychologist in Fox’s popular “Prodigal Son,” 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 Michael’s work and think he’s a great actor, and I knew I would get better on this job,” he says.
He and singer Jennifer Akerman have been together for seven years, and their wedding was supposed to have taken place last April.
“That didn’t 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.