SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Mayor of Kingstown Season 4, Episode 7.

Bunny Washington is alive on Mayor of Kingstown, but he’s definitely not well. The Paramount+ show revealed that Bunny had finally woken up in his hospital bed after being shot. Unfortunately, Mike McLusky then dropped even more bad news on Bunny: the person responsible was Bunny’s supposed new ally Frank Moses. Naturally, Bunny wants all the revenge he can get.

In an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, actor Tobi Bamtefa discussed his emotional reaction to his character’s life hanging in the balance. He also explained how Bunny feels about Frank betraying him, and how it’s been working with the legendary Lennie James to build the dynamic between those two characters. Plus, learn how he perceives Bunny’s friendship with Mike in the wake of Frank’s actions.

Brittany Frederick: Audiences feared that Bunny would be the next Mayor of Kingstown character to die, especially with what happened to Doug Carney just a few weeks ago. What was your reaction when you learned Bunny was going to get shot? Did you think you might be leaving the series, too?

Tobi Bamtefa: I think my reaction was panic. I think almost threw up. And then I remember I called one of the scriptwriters and the showrunner, Dave [Erickson], and I spoke to him on the phone. I was like, am I good? They were like yeah, we don’t know. [Laughs.] I kind of had to just wait to figure it out. So my reaction was panic, pure panic.

But it’s always been like that in Kingstown. Anyone can go at any time.

When Bunny learns that Frank is responsible for the attempted murder, what’s his thought process? Is he surprised that Frank is the responsible party, and how hurt does he feel?

In the previous episode, when Frank and Bunny are talking, Frank asks Bunny if he trusts him yet and Bunny responds, I trust you 60 percent. So that kind of tells you in this world here, there is no 100 percent trust.

How I thought about it was that, when he finds out who it is, the actual feeling was more of oh, he got really close. He got really close. Nobody ever gets that close to Bunny unless he wants it like that. It was a very vulnerable moment to almost be betrayed by your own ambition, in a sense, and also to be betrayed by someone you almost expected it from. He’s not surprised that it happened, but it happened and [Frank] got really close.

How does this incident shape Bunny emotionally going forward? Fans know that he wants revenge, but how much does this change him?

I’ll go back to Season 3, after Bunny’s cousin Rhonda gets shot, and it’s that feeling of this danger that I’ve been trying to keep at bay is now at my doorstep, and it’s taking people. It’s that kind of fear. The response is borderline irrational, in the things that he’s thinking in his head. Because this is a real danger, and it could stand to undo everything that he has been meticulously planning all these years, and planning for the people he loves.

He’s planning to protect his family and keep them insulated from this world while they’re making money and stuff. But now it’s doing the complete opposite of that. His family are smack-bang in the middle of danger, and he feels more exposed than anything. So it’s something he has to recalibrate.

Even though Frank and Bunny are now enemies, how great has it been to work with Lennie James? What would you say he brought to Mayor of Kingstown?

I really loved working with Lennie, and we used to hang out as well sometimes… I would ask him a ton of questions about life, his process, the craft and things like that. And he was gracious enough to entertain my questions, which I’m very grateful for, because I felt like I was maybe talking too much. [Laughs.]

But I was just so excited. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to work with Lennie James. I’ve been a fan of his for years, since I started acting, so for me to be going toe to toe with him, it was mind-blowing. I had to catch myself at times.

I read the script and the character description of Frank Moses—what Lenny brought to it completely blew out [of] the water any kind of ideas that I had. He completely went way beyond that. He brought a stillness to the character that makes him that much more sinister and dangerous.

This is someone who has been doing this for years. He’s not rocked by a lot, and he has a way about him. He’s very astute. He knows how to read people, especially, and he also knows how to find what their buttons are, because he’s been doing this for years, Lennie came in… That was it immediately, right down to the shoes. I was looking at his costume, and I said yeah, this guy’s it. This is it.

How would you describe Bunny’s dynamic with Mike in Mayor of Kingstown Season 4? Because the disruption of Frank has also kind of affected that relationship.

Mike did something at the foot of the [hospital] bed, where it was just like, it’s just me and you now, buddy. And he turned off his phone. He had also said some stuff in the previous episode as well, where he was talking about he has to protect his brother inside, and he has to protect his brother outside. I think what we’re seeing now is kind of the results.

In these little periods of time, we’re seeing the results of a relationship that has been built over months, right up until that moment. We’re seeing six months of brotherhood, six months of doing favors, doing this, doing that, looking out for this. We don’t know how many times [Mike] has avoided being shot by whichever gangsters come out the way and Bunny’s had to pull him out [of] the fire, or vice versa. So now we’re seeing Bunny is laid up in the hospital, and Mike is really worried for somebody that he holds dear. It’s a really nice, intimate brotherhood.

With the impact of the shooting and just the meatiness of this story in general, is Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 your most challenging season in this role?

It’s always a challenge, because you’re kind of working in retrospect in order to work in the present. I have to figure out where I left the character emotionally. The most challenging thing is probably, we have a gap. When we go home and stuff, there’s a gap; life gets in the way. So I get to forget about Bunny altogether. And then we come to work and it’s like boom, let’s go.

I have to kind of get two, three years’ worth of emotional baggage and bring it all forward, and evolve the character in the time that I have with the information that I have. Every year there is something that is done that that forces the character to evolve, and I have to be cognizant and then respond to that. So really every season has been a challenge, and it’s been a wonderful one.

Mayor of Kingstown streams Sundays on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Paramount+.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.