The 100: Paige Turco Talks Abby’s Addiction, Season 5 and More at Unity Days 2019
For Abby Griffin fans, The 100 Season 5 was both equal parts thrilling and terrifying as they watched her struggle through addiction and work to find her way back to the heart of herself.
Early this year at Unity Days 2019, we got the opportunity to hear Paige Turco speak about what it was like to bring this version of Abby to life, give fans insight into what the character was going through, and share her process.
Turco spoke from the heart about how Abby’s journey in The 100 Season 5 impacted her and how important it was for her to deliver an honest portrayal of the struggle with addiction.
When The 100 returned for Season 5 the audience found many of their favorite characters changed on the other side of the 6-year time jump. After spending that time in the bunker and undergoing extreme measures to cure herself of a sci-fi brain tumor, Abby Griffin returned traumatized by the horrors she and Octavia faced to keep their people alive, and struggling with an addiction to painkillers.
The idea for Abby to go through this particular storyline came from Turco herself; she shared that she’s seen multiple people in her own life go through addiction and that she wanted to bring light to the growing opioid crisis.
Turco: I was trying to tell a story about someone who was in tremendous pain.
Sunday’s moderators Claire Willett and Erin Drew from Meta Station asked the cast about the thing that challenged them the most during the previous season. For Turco what stood out most to her were the scenes where Abby was in the throes of withdrawal–especially the scene where she had to throw up into a bucket.
Turco also spoke about how challenging it is when her character has to be mean, calling back specifically to Abby’s detox scene where she had to yell at Clarke and the scene where Abby uses the shock collar on Raven. Lindsey Morgan recalled that scene as one of the most difficult for her as well.
Both Morgan and Turco were apprehensive about doing the scene, but Turco spoke with wisdom about how she channeled that resistance into the scene because Abby didn’t want to do that to Raven either.
An absolute sweetheart, in reality, Turco also mentioned just having filmed another scene where Abby is in conflict with someone. What do you think she’s up to on The 100 Season 6?
Morgan and the rest of the cast were also blown away by how Turco physically changed as she brought Abby’s addiction to life during Season 5.
Turco: I’m very instinctual when I act. So embodying the pain and the heart of that–it just kind of happened, I didn’t really map it out scene to scene. Because it’s really about pain.
Each little detail in Abby’s physicality during The 100 Season 5 came from Turco’s instinct and experience as she poured her heart into the character once again. But she wouldn’t have it any other way; she shared that the best of acting is when you can go on a ride like the one she took this year.
It’s not all pain and suffering, though–the cast has a lot of laughs behind the scenes.
Turco: We try to be goofy on set, all of us try to have a sense of humor because it’s so dark.
Throughout the day the Meta Station moderators conducted an acting game where each of the guests delivered lines from The 100 as other characters from pop culture or with specific direction. Richard Harmon kicked off the day delivering a Bellamy line as ALIE, while Turco started out with a romantic Kane line in the dulcet tones of Fran Drescher.
There were many hit performances and an abundance of laughter as the game went on from Tati Gabrielle doing her best Darth Vader, and Lindsey Morgan going full Yoda to Shannon Kook delivering a kindergarten musical performance and Chelsey Reist shouting her first impassioned “ABBY!” channeling her best Sachin Sahel.
In the final “conclave” battle at the closing panel, Paige Turco and Lindsey Morgan took home the crown for a variety of performances including Turco sensually delivering “a message from the commander” and Morgan giving the crowd a truly inspired Gandalf.
While we didn’t get a lot of insight on the new season, as it’s being kept tightly under wraps, when asked about what their characters would do for stress relief, Morgan joked that Abby has Kane for that. Hopefully, we’ll get to see those two together again when Season 6 returns.
Speaking of Abby’s relationships, Turco and Harmon also shared some insight into the relationship between Abby and Murphy over the past few seasons. Abby sees through Murphy’s fear in a way that not a lot of people are able to, and Murphy seeks out Abby’s approval because she brings out the best in him.
Turco: Her belief as Abby is that if you encourage and you give hope, you give love, it’s going to do something, it’s going to [bring about] change.
They all agree that Murphy has become Abby’s delinquent son, in a way.
In the true spirit of Unity Days, Turco spent the day sharing sweet moments with fans and spreading love and light in each connection. We can’t wait to see what she’s gotten up to as Abby Griffin 125 years in the future when The 100 Season 6 returns on April 30th!
Stay tuned for more from our coverage of Unity Days 2019 and an exciting announcement about SweetRiver Con 2019!
*Photography Credit: Devan Head
The 100 returns Tuesday, April 30th at 9/8c on The CW.
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Samantha Coley
Samantha (she/her) is a social media specialist by day and a sci-fi junkie by night. As a freelance writer and podcaster, she also enjoys live-tweeting, blogging, good music, and better television. Her current favorite television shows include Star Trek (yes, all of them), Riverdale, and Stranger Things and there will always be a place in her heart for Battlestar Galactica, Leverage, and The West Wing.