Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Deadly Class’ Luke Tennie

Luke Tennie is delivering a breakout performance in his first role as a series regular on SYFY’s Deadly Class. Based on the popular graphic novels by Rick Remender and executively produced by The Russo Brothers, Deadly Class is a coming-of-age tale about a disillusioned teen, Marcus Lopez [Benjamin Wadsworth], who is recruited into a high school for assassins.

Luke plays Willie Lewis, one of the assassins that Marcus meets at King’s Dominion Atelier of the Deadly Arts. But unlike most of the students at the academy, Willie is a pacifist, which he hides from everyone.

Pop Culturalist had a killer conversation with Luke about all things Deadly Class.

PC: Tell us about Deadly Class and your character in the series?
Luke: Deadly Class is a show about a young teenager named Marcus, set in the backdrop of the late 1980s. It’s about a young man who’s struggling. He’s homeless and has no place to go. He finds a home at King’s Dominion Atelier of the Deadly Arts, a place for people training to dethrone their corrupt masters, as Master Lin would put it.

Marcus meets my character, Willy, at King’s Dominion. What’s dope about this show is that it’s about Marcus, but through his perspective, we see how many other people come along and influence the way he lives his life, his mindset, and his point of view. It’s really cool.

Willy is this hardened gangster from the streets of Watts, California and the leader of a group called Final World Order. He assumed that position from his parents. As soon as he was old enough, he became the next generation of leaders of the gang. Marcus meets Willy, but he finds out that Willy isn’t all that he seems. He’s a young man who struggles with morality. He’s someone who doesn’t like violence and hates the fact that he has to be in this institution, but knows he needs to be here to survive.

PC: What initially attracted you to this role?
Luke: When you’re a young actor trying to make it, you don’t get a chance to pick a part. You go out for whatever you’re sent and you do your best. You know that there are people out there who might be more talented. Even if you’re amazing, there’s somebody out there who’s done it before, so it’s really hard to get your foot in the door. I was happy just to go in for an audition, but when I got the script for Deadly Class, I was blown away. It was so good. That’s not to say that every script an actor gets is bad. [laughs]

Willie is a complete subversion to who you think he is. As an African American male in the late 1980s, you think hardened gangster, but that’s not the case: he’s somebody who’s passionate about abstaining from violence. He wants to read comic books and play video games.

So that’s what really attracted me to Willie, aside from the fact that it’s nice to get a job. I’m blessed to have a job, but it’s also a really great script.

PC: How challenging is it to bring a beloved character from a graphic novel to this live-action format? Did you feel any pressure given how successful they’ve been?

Luke: Well, to be honest, I think a lot of times when actors might feel pressure, it’s because we put it on ourselves. No one texted me and was like, “Hey, you better do this right.” I didn’t have anyone on Instagram saying, “Don’t screw this up, pal!” [laughs]


Everybody is rooting for you. They want it to be good. They want the show to be good. If something that you love becomes a TV show, you generally don’t hear people saying, “I hope it sucks!” They might say, “I hope it doesn’t suck,” or “I really hope they do it well,” but that really means they’re on your team. There are a lot of people that are passionate about this graphic novel. They don’t want us to fail, so we just feel the excitement.

PC: Music plays an integral role in both the graphic novels and the television series. We heard that each cast member was given a playlist to help them get into character. What was on Willie’s playlist?
Luke: It was a lot of Run-D.M.C. and Eric B & Rakim. I had a lot of classic hip-hop. It was a lot of fun for me, too, because I didn’t grow up listening to hip-hop. My mom always said, “I don’t want nothing with that language in this house.” [laughs] We played a lot of gospel music. I grew up Southern Baptist, so I didn’t get a chance to grow up with hip-hop. It’s been cool to look back and reflect with an adult mindset to see what these people were actually saying.

PC: Like you said earlier, Willie is this really complex character with a lot of different layers. Which has been your favorite to explore and why?
Luke: My favorite is his front. It’s my favorite aspect to play because it’s a little less challenging than the emotional, vulnerable parts, which are also amazing to play, but not necessarily as fun. The most fun is when I’m Willie being a showboat. He’s hard, he’s stone-cold, he’s a gangster. I actually looked at everything Denzel [Washington] has ever done and tried to be like that. The true challenge lies in the human part of Willie, where he’s truly vulnerable and just a kid.

Photo Credit: Katie Yu/SYFY

PC: Willie is haunted by his past and we’ve slowly seen him open up to Marcus. What can you tease about that dynamic, moving forward, and will we see him branch out to the rest of the students?
Luke: The coolest part about this relationship is that in another world, I think they would have been very close friends. Willie’s somebody who loves comics and wants to play video games. Marcus is the same way. At their core, they have truly teenager-type goals. They want to kick it and have a good time.

At this institution, there’s no possible way they can be friends unless they’re bound by catastrophe. It just so happens, in episode one, we see what that catastrophe is, and now they have to deal with being friends. They have all these things in common, while also having a bunch of differences that create envy, jealousy, as well as respect and admiration. It’s a crazy relationship.

PC: With a television adaptation, there’s freedom to create storylines and relationships that don’t exist within the source material, which we saw with Willie and Maria. Can we expect more of that in the remainder of the season?
Luke: Absolutely! That’s one of my favorite parts about this. When we were cast, we were all given the comics. I got to read all of them. I’m a fan! I really enjoyed the comics. I’ve read them just as many times as the fans have. I think I’m on my fifth read through now, but that has been one of my favorite parts about this whole experience. I had never worked with Maria and I got to! In that moment, we see that Willie is truly kind—he’s being the guy he really is.


It was fun, and I look forward to those parts. I think that’s my favorite question so far. I can’t tease anything about it, but stay tuned! Rick says we unpack what we don’t get to see in the comics.

PC: With such a rich comic book history, where would you like to see Willie’s storyline go?
Luk: To be honest, from my point of view, I know a lot of people in today’s age don’t want to see minorities stereotyped in any sort of negative fashion, but I think that it’s important to realize that everybody can be the bad guy no matter what color they are. It’s not reserved for people who look like those who have systematically oppressed others—that’s not the only color of evil. Evil takes different forms, shapes, and it’s up to us to be ready for it. I have no idea what the writers have planned; they keep it all on lock. But, from my point of view, it would be nice to see, if Willie does compromise, why. If he remains truthful, how will he survive?


I think if Willie does give in, he’ll be on the show for a while, but if Willie maintains his moral compass, I don’t think he’ll last much longer. I’m excited to see where it goes, though. I’m not one of those actors who’s like, “Oh, man. I hope they don’t kill me off.” If the character is part of the story and the story’s better if he dies, that’s the one I want to be part of. I want to be part of the better story, regardless of what happens to the character.

Career Questions

PC: How did you discover your passion for acting?
Luke: I fell into it. I was eighteen. I was a senior in high school. I was a football player. I took an acting class because I forgot to change my elective a couple of years back. Then, I just kept at it. I had this teacher, Miss Wright, who I really liked. She was intense and took acting very seriously. I always realized I did better in a class where the teacher cared.


During my senior year, we were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. I was devastated. I thought we were going to states that year. I was heartbroken. My acting teacher asked me, “Luke, does this free you up to compete in our thespian competition?” I was like, “Oh, shoot. I guess.” She gave me a couple of monologues, and said, “Now, look, you commit to me, you pay attention, and you understand what it is that I’m teaching you isn’t just for fun. We can have fun while we do this, but if you understand that we’re not doing this to have fun, you can go far.” I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

So I brought everything that I had and when I did the competition, people told me that I was good. I was like, “Oh wow, that’s cool. Well, I’ve been trying to be good at football and it took me four years. If I’m good at this and I just started, maybe I might have what people refer to as talent?” That’s where my confidence came from. As soon as I finished that competition, I knew I wanted to go acting school.

PC: What’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learned being a part of this industry?
Luke: Every lesson I’ve learned is big. I’ll tell you what I learned recently: you can’t expect anything. You can’t. You go into a room, you have to earn whatever it is you want. When you’re on set, you have to earn respect. A lot of people understand kindness, a lot of people understand professionalism, but respect is different. For somebody to truly respect you, there’s an element of trust. That’s something that I learned and it excited me. I just graduated college a few years ago and a few of my friends see where I’m at as this really high spot, which is really just not the truth.


If I stopped today, no one would ask me back. I have to continue to hustle. I have to walk onto set with the attitude that I’m here to do 100% as opposed to being like, “I’ve been cast. I can relax now.” You have to show up to work, smile, be infectious with joy, and people will respect you, not because you’re on a TV show, but because of who you are. Once people respect you for who you are, there’s no telling where you’ll get hired or what you’ll be asked to do. You’ll also feel better because nobody truly understands getting something they don’t deserve.

To keep up with Luke, follow him on Twitter and Instagram, and catch Deadly Class every Wednesday at 10/9c.

Photo Credit: SYFY