WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the first three episodes of The Expanse Season 5, available now on Amazon Prime Video.
Throughout the first four seasons of The Expanse, Amos has been one of the most intriguing members of the crew of the Rocinante, often seeming as likely to kill someone as he was to befriend them. Throughout that time, Wes Chatham, who plays the character, has deeply immersed himself in Amos' backstory and used what he's learned to create a nuanced portrayal that's resonated with fans everywhere. Yet, until now, the show has only hinted at Amos' traumatic origins. That changes in Season 5, when Amos returns home to Baltimore to confront his difficult past. Chatham turns in a subtle, compelling performance that fills in many blanks about his character while introducing new layers.
In an exclusive interview, Chatham spoke to CBR about the thrill of finally tackling Amos' backstory, his characters' mindset as he returns to Baltimore and the choices he's made as an actor to ensure he accurately depicts the consequences of Amos' trauma.
CBR: You mentioned previously that each season before filming, you read the novella about Amos, The Churn, and you’ve used that as the foundation for the character. Now in Season 5, The Churn is finally being adapted for the show. What was it like to shoot that story?
Wes Chatham: It was incredibly satisfying. I had the benefit with this character before we even started Season 1 to read The Churn. I also had Ty [Franck] and Daniel [Abraham, the writers of the novels,] that were involved with the show early on to be able to really help me understand the backstory. So this life and this backstory that I created in my imagination, I would think about for over six years now, all of the sudden, we get to [Season] 5, and you're actually going to the places that you've been living in your imagination, you're meeting the people that you've been [imagining] -- getting to talk to Erich and have a relationship with Erich, I've been envisioning for over six years -- so it was a really surreal experience in a lot of ways. It felt like they kind of were taking images out of my brain and putting it up. Creating this thing is like, "Oh man, this is how I imagined this to be."
This is such an interesting season for Amos because he's not someone we really see apart from the Roci crew, which has become an anchor for him. So from the beginning of Season 5, when he’s already by himself, he seems like he's on edge, like he's sort of itching for a fight. How did you understand his mindset?
Well, I think from the beginning, when he left Baltimore, he was leaving somebody that was very close to him. And in the beginning, he had a relationship and an arrangement that that person will always be protected. And so when he finds out that that person has died, he doesn't know how, and that's what he's going back to Earth to figure out. Did his deal that he made, did that get violated? And if that was violated, there's going to be consequences. If anybody hurt that person, there's going to be consequences. And also, it was [a bit of an] unmoored feeling because Lydia has always lived inside him, and she's the most influential relationship that he's ever had with anybody in his life.
When he meets Charles, who lived with Lydia but Amos doesn't know, Amos seems almost belligerent but then softens very quickly. What was your process for getting into and playing out these huge emotional arcs?
Well, I think the kind of work that went into the preparation of Amos, I remember giving The Churn early on to a psychologist and saying, "If this happened to somebody, what is the disorder? How does that manifest in their behavior as they become adults?" And then also, I came across the book called The Body Keeps the Score, which is a book specifically about trauma, and there's a bunch of different case studies that have had similar situations and how that manifested. So all this work that I've done and kind of spent six years thinking about this, that the emotional side just comes when you're in the circumstances and when you think about the empathy that you would have for your character, it just opens up and it just happens when you're doing the scene.
Yet, Amos can turn on a dime in a way we don't see with the other characters. His emotions are so contained and yet so easily brought out. Has that been a deliberate choice for you as an actor?
Yeah. So if somebody's disconnected, a lot of times, they're not going to feel anything, they're not going to be affected emotionally. But if they get triggered, all of that emotion that caused them to disconnect in the first place that they cannot process, that it's too much and it's too powerful, it all comes to the surface. And then you're completely out of control.
An adaptation of the novel series of the same name by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse stars Steven Strait, Cas Anvar, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Frankie Adams. New episodes of Season 5 premiere Wednesdays on Amazon Prime Video.