Actor who plays Sam in Unchosen unpacks why his character is the way he is and dark motivations

New Netflix psychological thriller Unchosen is dark, and haunting. And at the centre of the fascinating evil of Unchosen is Sam Devlin.

The show follows a religious cult in modern-day England. Sam is an escaped prisoner, played by actor Fra Fee. In the show, Rosie finds herself drawn to mysterious stranger Sam, after he saves her daughter Grace from drowning. As she becomes entangled in a new romance, she’s also dealing with abuse from her husband, Adam, who’s hiding his own secret. Adam is quietly struggling with his sexuality, and also finds himself attracted to Sam.

Sam himself is a twisted character, having lived a turbulent life in which he’s been in prison since he was 16, and only recently escaped.

via Netflix

‘He’s a real survivor and a master manipulator’

Speaking to The Metro, Fra Fee explained the character of Sam in Unchosen is “complicated and complex” and gave an insight into his state of mind.

“The character of Sam was so brilliantly conceived,” he said. “He’s wonderfully complicated and complex, and to try and figure out what makes him function and why he behaves in the way that he does was a real gift of an exercise.

“I, rightly or wrongly, really learned to love him because he does some seriously dubious stuff in his lifetime. At the beginning of the show, we see him escaping from prison for doing something obviously very bad, and his actions continue to be seriously questionable throughout the course of the story. But he’s a real survivor and a master manipulator. What a brilliant character to get to play – I felt very lucky.”

He went on to explain that the turbulent life Sam has had made it quite conceivable that he would be enticed by cult ideology. “His life has been chaotic up until that point, and he’s just come from prison where he’s been for 16 years. So to have a world that is serene and ordered, and everyone has their place, and there’s a sense of communion within everybody, there’s something very, very appealing about that,” Fra explained.

Sam has an ‘extensive backstory’

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via Netflix

Fra added that Julie Gearey, the writer of Unchosen, had an “extensive” backstory for Sam which really helped him to get to know his character.

“I was very fortunate that Julie had written an extensive backstory for Sam,” the actor said. “She was really adamant that she wanted this to come from a real place and for me to fully understand why he behaves in the way that he has.

“I had this brilliantly comprehensive backstory that involved his mum, who was a very, very good and attentive mother, but she abandons him because she can’t cope with the abusive husband, Sam’s dad. So he grows up with this really bad example of a father figure, and then the issues with abandonment trauma result in emotional dysregulation, and he can dissociate. So my research was about the psychological effects of trauma on a kid.

“That was all extremely useful, because I had to understand Sam. I had to love him, even though his actions are deplorable and the way he behaves is not the way a normal, functioning adult should behave, but I had to love him, and I had to figure him out. A lot of my research was based on the psychological effects of trauma and abandonment.”

The writer of Unchosen has also spoken about Sam as a character

In an interview with Tudum, Julie Gearey has also broken down her intentions with Sam as a character. She noted it was Sam wasn’t a “full psychopath,” but rather had “elements of sociopathy.”

She said: “It’s not interesting writing a full psychopath as a character, because if you have full psychopathy, you cannot change, you cannot grow… I wanted the audience to feel uncertain around him, but fascinated by him.

“I think the key to Sam’s character is he’s an absolute survivor. He’s an arch manipulator, he’s a survivor, and that’s the power of him as an antagonist.”

Unchosen is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.