Even sexy CW actors are obsessed with Breaking Bad! Diogo Morgado, star of The Messengers, The CW’s spooky new sci-fi series, embraced his inner fanboy while filming his new show in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Southwestern city, now-fabled setting of the hit AMC series (and subsequent spinoff, Better Call Saul), still houses plenty of Walter White-frequented locations — the White homestead, A1A car wash (aka Octopus car wash), Los Pollos Hermanos (aka burrito and burger joint Twisters). Morgado told Us Weekly that he definitely took the Breaking Bad fan tour of Albuquerque while living there for months.
“Oh yeah I did! Like a tourist,” the Portuguese actor gushed. “The car wash, the Walter White house, I went to the whole thing. We shot the pilot with more than half of the crew of Breaking Bad. And on certain occasions, we were shooting right across the road from Better Call Saul.”
Morgado, 34, stars in The Messengers, premiering Friday, April 17, as “The Man,” aka the mysterious figure who connects five strangers when they suddenly drop dead and come back to life minutes later with special powers, bound together by a biblical prophecy.
“Their powers come with a lot of responsibility, like Spider-Man. And every time they use them there are consequences to them, to those around them, and that’s dangerous. So you have to choose wisely every time you use your powers,” he revealed.
His character is still an enigma, however. “He’s creepy! He’s dark,” Morgado admitted. “He is the bad guy. But that being said, there’s a lot of arguments that he’s bringing that are quite valid and hopefully the audience will be like wait a minute, he’s kind of right.”
The Messengers is a show about morality, Morgado said, something not necessarily in line with the rest of The CW’s superhero and supernatural programming. “It’s about shifting our perspective of good and evil, right and wrong, and showing us that we can do stuff that we’re not even aware that we can do sometimes, for good and for bad,” he said.
Plus, audiences like to be challenged, Morgado argued, so he’s not worried if the show is an outlier on its home network. “I think people are more eager nowadays to have different stuff, and suddenly niches become huge franchises. Look at The Fast and the Furious, for instance. When the first movie came out, it was like, ‘eh, it’s just a movie about cars.’ They’re on seven. We might be on to something.”
The Messengers airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.
