SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Fightland Season 1, Episode 2.

The second episode of Fightland revealed a lot about those closest to Duke Kilroy. “Brick by Brick” saw Duke’s childhood friend Jay stumble into Duke’s work with the cartel—and almost get shot before promptly becoming an accomplice. Meanwhile, viewers learned that ring girl Kim is actually an undercover cop.

TVBrittanyF.com spoke with actors Tahirah Sharif (who plays Kim) and Tyler Conti (who portrays Jay) to get their takes on their characters. What was it like for them to play with these plot twists? And how much could they prepare for the unpredictability of the Starz series?

Brittany Frederick: Tahirah, the big reveal in Episode 2 was that Kim is a cop. You had a great performance as Lizzie Adama in The Tower; how was it to play another cop, but a very different kind of cop, in Fightland?

Tahirah Sharif: It’s cool. I enjoy playing cops, and even though they are both cops, it’s very different worlds, very different personalities. I think Kim is probably a lot more cutthroat compared to my character on The Tower. I think on The Tower, she was really trying to always morally do what was right, even though that led to not-so-great outcomes. Whereas Kim in Fightland, she’s not interested in doing things that are morally right. I think she’s more interested in her ultimate goal and by any means necessary.

Tyler, Jay makes an equally strong impression; the first thing ever said about him in the premiere is no one knows where he is. What’s it like for you to start from what is the bottom for him, but that gives you so much to play with?

Tyler Conti: It’s so much fun. I love playing the underdog or the guy that kind of comes up. You live in this kind of gritty, underground, kind of dirty world, and I feel quite comfortable there. And then you start to climb. It’s really nice. It’s fun.

What was it about Jay that you connected with, that made you want to play him for hopefully several more seasons of Fightland?

Conti: He’s super-relatable. We all muck up, we all mess about, we all kind of get things wrong, and I think that feels really human. I think you care for characters like that, and I hold Jay quite dearly to me. It’s nice to have empathy for your character.

Tahirah, where was the appeal of Kim to you? What did you see in her beyond being undercover?

Sharif: She has so many layers to her. She has to inhabit multiple worlds. She’s ring card girl, she’s cop, she’s trying to develop a friendship with Duke. She’s trying to be so many things with so many different people that as an actor, it was so fun to play, because it was really challenging.

As an actor, that’s what you want. You want to be challenged when you come to set, and when you’re working, and with the types of characters you play because otherwise it’s boring. Whereas this was never boring. I was never bored because there was always a kind of ulterior motive, or a twist and a turn, throughout the entirety of shooting.

With so many of those twists in Fightland, how much did you want to know about Jay or Kim’s journeys in advance? Or did it change how you prepared from a performance standpoint?

Conti: For Jay, he gets caught up and smacked in the face constantly. So I didn’t want to overprepare. I always call it “throwing bombs,” when your partner throws bombs or the scene throws bombs and you instinctively react to it, I love that. And I think Jay needs that because it’s all instinctive. It’s all like a knee-jerk reaction. It’s all on the go. So I didn’t want to overprepare, personally.

Sharif: I would actually say it’s weird, because I’d say I’m quite an instinctive actress, but actually for this I did need to prepare—because Kim needs to know what’s going on. She needs to always stay five to ten steps ahead of her situation and everyone else, so she needs to plan like as much as she can, whatever’s within her control. I think she knows how she’s going to navigate every conversation.

What do you love about Fightland as a show overall, whether your character’s involved in it or not?

Conti: I don’t think you can expect anything necessarily. Everything just comes out of nowhere, and I love that about it. It’s a real roller coaster of plot and relationships. So you can’t sit at ease at any moment; something’s going to jump out at you.

Sharif: Definitely. [It] definitely keeps you on your toes. Every time you go, I think I know where the story is going, it’s like bang, you don’t. And I think as a viewer, it’s going to make for a really entertaining watch.

Fightland airs Fridays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on Starz and streams on the Starz app. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Starz.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 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.