Exclusive Fan Interview with Shadowhunters’ Isaiah Mustafa

Terri Clark is an entertainment writer, TV addict, pop culture geek and award-winning young adult author. She loves the access Twitter has given her to the people behind her favorite books & TV shows. TV isn’t just a static sport anymore. (Yes, sport! Watching as much as she does requires commitment, dedication and endurance.) She's a writer and lead editor for Talk Nerdy With Us. Please follow her at terriclarkbooks on Facebook and Twitter. You can find info on her YA books at TerriClarkBooks.com.

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SHADOWHUNTERS – Freeform’s “Shadowhunters” stars Isaiah Mustafa as Luke Garroway. (Freeform/Justin Stephens)

Everyone’s favorite father figure has got his paws, er, hands full this season on Shadowhunters. Luke Garroway’s police partner, Ollie, is possessed. His adoptive daughter, Clary, is fighting to bring back the love of her life from the darkness of Lilith’s hypnotic influence. (Even if you believe owl you need is love, it may not be enough.) And Clary’s best friend, Simon, has a fairy-fortified force field [say that ten times fast!] he can’t control, plus he’s sired a psychopathic baby vamp with a Fatal Attraction crush on him. That’s not even everything, so you have to feel for Luke. Whatever happened to mowing the lawn and aimlessly changing channels on the TV?

Here Isaiah Mustafa talks about Luke’s trajectory this season, that flirtation we all eye-balled in the last episode, his iconic Old Spice commercials and what stunt Infinity Wars beat him to the punch on.

Terri: First off, I just wanted to tell you almost all of the questions I received started with, “Tell him how much we love him.” So, I just wanted to share that with you, because it was across the board.

Isaiah: Oh, that’s so sweet. Oh, my gosh. No, please… first thing you can lead with is please tell them I said, “Thank you!”

Isaiah: For 3A, the finale. The finale scene, there’s a… me and Izzy team up and that was probably the best scene for me though.

Isaiah: Working with the pack, right now Luke is going to be focused on mostly finding out… trying to get his partner back first and foremost. And then, the pack is again taking a little bit of a back seat which will be addressed in 3B. There’s going to be some situations where Luke has to really sit down and ask himself, “What do I do about this situation because I’m not giving my full attention to what I’m obligated to give my attention to?” So there’s definitely some stuff going to happen in 3B that revolves around the pack.

Isaiah: I mean, I think there’s going to be some fireside chats with each one of the main characters. [laughs] I think that’s what Luke is good at…[laughs] is either calming people down or letting people know, “Hey, you know, get your heads straight. You’re better than what you’re thinking right now. If you’re feeling depressed, you’re better than that so you know that.” He’s very good at giving confidence to each of these characters.

Isaiah: I think what that’s going to do– well, I know what that’s going to do, is it’s going to move him to act on… he wants to get her back and he has to get her back safely. So he’s got to figure out a way to get to the Owl and get to Lilith and get Ollie back without hurting her because she’s possessed.

Isaiah: That’s so sweet. [laugh] That’s so sweet. Well, he can trust Ollie, it’s just she’s very anxious and she’s very eager to get in the fight, you know? She wants to get in there. So it’s not that he can’t trust her, it’s just that he needs to kind of tamp down her excitement because it’s almost too much. I think what most fans like to ask, I think what she’s asking about is, “Is he ever going to find that trust and bond that he had with Jocelyn in someone else?”

And that, you have to watch and see, because I think there’s some opportunity there but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. But I definitely think there’s opportunity for him to really find someone that he can really, almost call his new parabatai for that.

Terri: I have to ask, do you watch The Walking Dead?

Isaiah: Yes, oh my goodness.

Terri: I’ve been thinking about Ollie as the new Carl. Always like, “Get back here! Go back in the house!” [I need a comparison gif of this!]

Isaiah: [laughs] Yes, very similar. Yes, very similar. They’re like, “What are you doing out here? Stop walking around out there, get back in bed. [laughs] Yeah, get out!”

Terri: So ShadowHunters7 is just going to come right out and just ask you, are we going to see Luke and Maryse start dating?

Isaiah: Well, I don’t know about the dating part. I can tell you, you will definitely see some more interaction between the two, but I think, I know, what this last episode was… was basically cleaning the table off and making sure there was no bad blood and starting from a fresh new perspective and no drama between the two of them. So if anything does happen or if anything is in the works, it can start from a fresh foundation.

Terri: I would agree with that for sure, but tell us, there’s definitely some flirting there at the end. Come on.

Isaiah: Well no, that’s… I mean you can see it and look, you can see that. She’s flirting with him. [Tell me, who was flirtier?] But whether or not that evolves into anything, you know, relationships are tricky. I mean, and you have to remember too, that they both just got out of something, so they have to, you know, as much as they may feel pulled to get into something they both understand that… look, let’s respect what’s going on here but at the same time let’s be careful.

Isaiah: I’d say Laryse is. Laryse is the one I’d go with. I only say that because I heard a showrunner mention that also. [Is that a hint?]

Isaiah: Oh man, that’s a great question. So because he’s got something to kind of… it almost broadens his character and it deepens who he is as a character and why he does what he does, because now it’s not that he’s got Jocelyn and Clary’s doing her thing and he’s going around, well, telling her this, telling her that. Now he has to get in there and do things for Clary because it’s on his shoulders now. So, it’s a lot more responsibility that Luke has because he feels if he doesn’t help her, nobody will and she’ll be in this world by herself. So it brings him closer to Clary, but it also makes him feel a tremendous amount of responsibility.

Terri: Right. He’s the parental figure now and so he feels–

Isaiah: Aw man. Big time.

Terri: The responsibility there, and he’s kind of adopted a bunch of others with her.

Isaiah: Yeah. [laughs] Everyone.

Isaiah: Yeah, I suggested a stunt in Season 2. I literally just saw it last night on Infinity War and I was like, “Well, there goes that. That’s not going to happen.”

But I always had this idea that Magnus and Luke would be in this fight and Magnus would astral project steps for Luke to step on as he’s climbing up to go fight this thing or whatever. And I was like, “Why don’t we do that? That’d be kind of cool.” And, I don’t know… Clearly, we didn’t do it and now Marvel used it, and so now we’ll never do it.

Terri: Oh, no! Well, that definitely sounds cool. I haven’t seen Infinity Wars yet, but you painted a good picture. I can see it in my mind.

Isaiah: Yeah. I won’t tell you who is doing what, but when you see it you’ll be like, “There’s that thing.”

Terri: “There’s that thing.” [laugh] I want to ask you myself about the Old Spice commercials because they remain my favorite commercials to this day. They always make me laugh.

Isaiah: Oh, thank you.

Terri: Absolutely. Did you have any notion that they would become so beloved and iconic?

Isaiah: No, not at all. It’s still a mystery to me sometimes, how that perfect storm kind of came about. But no, I didn’t. I thought it was just another commercial that I’d do, you know– I think you ask guys– for example, I’ll take Pretty Little Liars… if you were to ask them, “Did you guys know that your show would become such a phenomenon?” I think they probably went into it thinking, “Oh, this is cool. We booked a show. Hopefully, it goes more than two, three seasons.” And then boom. Next thing you know, it’s this mega-show, you know? It’s always surprising that it happens.

Terri: And you’re working in conjunction with Tide now. Are you going to do more commercials with them or any more Old Spice commercials?

Isaiah: Yeah, there’s nothing set up right now but I’m still under contract with Old Spice, so we’ll see what happens in the next few months. And yeah, that Tide commercial was one of the funnest things I’ve done because it was super cool to work with David Harbour [Stranger Things]. He was so funny.

https://youtu.be/kulyPinO49I

You can catch Shadowhunters on Freeform, Tuesday’s at 8 pm. And be sure to catch Isaiah on Twitter and Instagram. 

 

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