Gen V's Michele Fazekas has recalled how "weird" it was to "grieve a fictitious character" following actor Chance Perdomo's death, having already written five episodes of season 2.
In a new interview with Deadline, the showrunner said she's "very proud" of the fact that the second chapter is centered on Perdomo's metal-manipulating Supe Andre – even though he doesn't physically appear in any scenes.
"As much as people have lost the real Chance, our people have lost Andre," Fazekas explained. "What does that look like in a world where it's superheroes in college and a lot of ridiculous gore and funny? We just sort of made it like we wanted to honor him. I remember being in the writers' room and talking about Andre – cause we had broken Andre's story. We wrote like five episodes of Andre's story, that after we came back after Chance died, we're like, 'OK, all of that is obviously gone.'"
Perdomo, who was best known for playing Ambrose in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina prior to his stint in Gen V, tragically passed away at that age of 27 in March 2024, following a motorcycle accident.
"It is a weird thing to grieve a fictitious character, but we did. We definitely did actually talk about it like, 'I think it's OK to actually grieve something, 'cause you grow to love these characters as much as you love the people who are portraying them,'" Fazekas continued. "In some ways, we knew Andre better than we knew Chance. Chance was in Toronto. We spent more time with Andre in a way, and it was like, losing Chance is incredibly unimaginable, but we all were like, 'Oh, we also lost this Andre guy we really liked.' So, at the end, I was like, 'Oh, [the season] was about Andre,' and it was about Chance. I'm very proud of that."
The first three episodes of Gen V season 2, which dropped on Prime Video on September 17, revealed that Andre died trying to escape the Elmira Institute, where he and his pals Marie (Jaz Sinclair) Jordan (Derek Luh/London Thor), and Emma were being held captive at the end of season 1. Turns out, he'd managed to find a way out via a maintenance pipe, but by the time he'd turned around to tell the others, someone had rebricked the opening. In his attempt to open a steel exit with his powers instead, he suffered a fatal stroke.
Never miss an episode with our Gen V season 2 release schedule. For more, check out our list of the best shows on Amazon Prime Video for some viewing inspiration.
