Roswell, New Mexico: Michael Vlamis on Malex, Filming One of the Season’s Most Difficult Scenes, and What’s Ahead for His Character [Exclusive Interview]

Helmed by showrunner Carina MacKenzie, Roswell, New Mexico, The CW’s reboot of the 90s teen alien drama Roswell, has garnered an intense and engaged fan base.

At the heart of the fandom is the series’ angsty LGBTQ couple, Malex. The show explores different types of alienation, whether due to immigration status, sexuality, or literally being an alien. 

Michael Vlamis plays Michael Guerin, a genius “angry cowboy” alien with telekinesis power who crash-landed in Roswell and has been living in the outskirts of human life ever since. I recently talked with Vlamis about the meaning of the fans’ reaction to Malex, the role of music in his process, and the upcoming episode that features the best performance of his life. 

Vlamis’s role as Michael Guerin is his first foray into television and he went into the experience with very few expectations from viewers.

“I didn’t even know what a ship name was before the show started. To be honest, am I surprised at how well it’s been received? Yes.”

Even though Vlamis didn’t have a clear idea of how fans would respond, he and the cast on Roswell, New Mexico did have the clear goal, which Vlamis said was “to be as honest and truthful to the characters and the situation as possible.” 

That authenticity is at the core of Vlamis’s performance and it was established early on in the filming of the series.

“I know this role meant a lot to Tyler [Blackburn] too. It is a much different role than what he played on Pretty Little Liars. Between the two of us we just kind of looked at each other when we first met, day one, and we talked it out and we agreed that whatever we do, the love has to be real. This is a ten-year relationship in the making,” Vlamis shared. “That has to be real. That chemistry, you can’t fake that, and that we trust each other.”

Despite the commitment to the real connection between the two actors, Vlamis still didn’t quite anticipate how well it would turn out.

“I try to say I’m not surprised by how it turned out, but you know I am. I am because it feels so real on screen with Tyler. Working with him. And to see it now. They’re my favorite scenes.”

The show has included some very steamy, and shirtless, hook-up scenes between Michael Guerin and Alex Manes, played by Tyler Blackburn, and on Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 9, “Songs About Texas,” between Michael and Maria DeLuca, played by Heather Hemmens.

“I never had a hesitation. But, you know, it can be a little weird sometimes. Even the scenes with Heather, where you’re kissing a friend of yours, it can be a little weird,” Vlamis said frankly.

“The girl I’m dating was on set when I was hooking up with Heather in that scene. That’s always a weird line in general. We just fully committed,” he laughed.

Ultimately, Vlamis believes that the powerful performances are less a result of him and more a result of them. 

“Tyler is one of the most open people I’ve ever met. I’m like that too, almost to a fault sometimes. I think when you have two open people, fully committed, this is what you get,” he gushed. 

The actor was also wonderfully surprised by the positive ways Malex has impacted fans’ lives. “The amount of people who have reached out saying that the scenes, the relationship between Alex and Michael, has made them stronger and more willing to face who they are and feel like they have somebody to confide in has been amazing. I never saw that coming.”

The actor pays attention to those messages in his DMs, and he’s found inspiration there. 

“There are these multiple Malex fan accounts, and literally, someone who runs one Malex account will DM me talking about how another Malex account is so cool and how even though they’ve never met, they will send each other articles and GIFs. These Malex fan account-runners are finding new friends. It’s wild.”

Michael Guerin has many sexy and fun scenes on the show, but he always faces a great deal of pain. Vlamis talked about how he is impacted by those darker emotional scenes. 

“I’m the type of person that if I am mad at Tyler in the show, I’m not going to go full method and not talk to the guy, but I definitely am looking at him a little differently all day on set,” he said.

“[It was the] same thing at the beginning of the show when me and Jeanine were enemies. Jeanine would be waving to me from across set, like in the pilot scene when we’re all dancing at the Homecoming, and I just wouldn’t even look at her,” he continued. 

Vlamis explained his highly intuitive process. “I do keep it really real. I feel like the more real you keep something, even though it is hard to shake sometimes, the more real it is the less work you have to do as an actor. If I just feel like a scared vulnerable kid who is unsure of what he just did in the first situation he thinks is love, how would I react if somebody came into the room? So, I literally just put myself in those shoes and then I react.”

“I never know what I’m going to do on any take. Sometimes that’s frustrating for people who work in the sound department if I yell or talk quieter on a shot. But, for the most part, that was a cool thing about the show. They really gave us free rein to explore and dig deep on a performance.”

On Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 6, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Michael and Alex are interrupted by Alex’s homophobic father, Jesse Manes. Jesse Manes lunges to pummel Alex, and Michael intervenes, which gets him beaten.

Vlamis opened up about the filming of that scene. “I remember that day, specifically. By the time the last shot came up, Tyler couldn’t even do it anymore. He was destroyed.”

“They did a shot that didn’t even make it,” he revealed. “It was too graphic, so it got left on the editing room floor. It was a slow-mo shot of blood, as Tyler’s yelling ‘NO!’, of blood splattering all over his face from my hand.”

“They almost didn’t even allow the shot of me on the ground with my hand up and the camera from the low angle looking up at me screaming,” he further disclosed. “But Carina [MacKenzie] really fought for it and was like, ‘No, this is real. Abuse like this happens. We need to show it.’ And luckily, they kept it in, because I thought it was really powerful,” Vlamis concluded.

The final product was impressive, but the filming did impact the actor who fully immerses himself in the character. “The headspace all day was like what I was like as a little boy who was scared or who was in a fight,” he admitted. “On a day like that, on set, I feel like shit all day.”

For Vlamis, the impact of performing that powerful and traumatic scene is tied in with his idea of being a hero. 

“Michael Guerin has this thing where he wants to be Alex’s hero,” he opined. “I don’t think heroes decide at that moment, ‘I’m going to be a hero.’ No. You just inherently want to step up and handle business. In that scene, that’s exactly how I thought about it.”

“Do you back away or do you protect that person? In that moment I wanted nothing more than to protect Tyler. And all day that stuck with me and I could not shake that. It made me feel sick,” he continued.

Vlamis explained how the couple’s jump from bliss to horror made the scene incredibly challenging.

“A scene like that is super difficult because at the beginning of the scene, we’re the happiest we could be. We have just slept together for the first time; it’s the happiest that we can be. And then all of a sudden, it’s downfall. So, you’re stuck in this state of clouded anger and disgust and just being scared, but at the same time, you have to shut that off and be the happiest and find the bliss in the situation at the top.”

“It was a very difficult one to go back and forth. It was probably the most emotionally exhausting day that we had,” he admitted. 

The scene is incredibly moving, and Vlamis was sure to highlight how each actor contributed to its intensity and authenticity. 

“Trevor St. John did a great job doing [the scene] too. When the camera was on us and not on him, he was doing even more.”

“When he came in the room one time, he smashed that hammer against the door to frighten us. He was adlibbing creepy stuff off camera staring at me and Tyler. He really dug into that character and really helped elevate the scene,” Vlamis continued. “It was scary.”

Michael Guerin finds solace and peace when he is strumming a guitar. Michael Vlamis also has a special relationship to music that helped guide his audition for, and eventual portrayal of the alien troubadour. 

“I am obsessed with music. I am obsessed.” Vlamis was animated and romantic as he described the connection between specific albums and songs and his character. 

“I think when I first auditioned for Michael Guerin, I was kind of vibing with the soundtrack for Inside Llewyn Davis,” he said.

“Songs like ‘Fare Thee Well,’ and there was one other one that just talks about this dude being alone and being skinny as a straw of grass. And obviously, that’s not Michael Geurin, but Michael is a guy who is just kind of a roamer. He lives in an airstream. Before he had to move his Airstream, he was just living where he crashed.”

“He’s a guy that, even though he has Max and Isobel, he feels alone. They were adopted. He had nobody growing up. All he had were bad foster parents and escape to homestead ranch. So the Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack was a good one for me.”

If you want to follow on Vlamis’s musical journey for his role as Michael Guerin, he had additional insight into what albums to play and how to use the pain of a break-up to empathize with being lost.

“There’s a band called Turnover. They have like three different albums now. But their middle album, Peripheral Vision, is an Emo, but upbeat, soundtrack. So, they’re singing about sad things. He literally says, ‘I want to take my head and smash it into pieces.’ But it’s this upbeat summer vibe that you would play with the convertible [top] down or something in LA. It’s the weirdest mix.”

“The Turnover album is about a breakup.” Vlamis connected going through the pain of lost love to his search for Michael Guerin and to the music.

“I booked this role off of a five-and-a-half year break-up. I was so depressed, And all I wanted was to be back with that girl. And all Michael Guerin wanted was to know where he comes from and who he is. So, that was my way into the character,” Vlamis revealed. 

“[Michael Guerin is] kind of a lost boy who just wants love. He wants to be loved. He wants community. He’s sick of being an outsider, I think,” Vlamis continued. 

Vlamis related to his character’s struggle. “No matter how much of a chip on his shoulder he has, he’s very vulnerable. That resonated with me a ton.”

Vlamis would rather fight than hide his affectionate side. He gave an example from his childhood. “I was the kind of guy [who] would kiss my mom if she dropped me off at school. Some people would be afraid because they would be bullied.” But, Vlamis was not afraid of being bullied. “No. I’m going to be vulnerable and I’m gonna be open. And if you say something about it, you’re gonna get hit by the open and vulnerable kid that’s supposed to be a wussy.”

For him, the whimsical paradox of being both a soft and severe person matched the character he was tasked with portraying. 

“Just jumping into a song like ‘Viking’ by Frank Ocean, where I don’t even know what he’s talking about, maybe old times with his dad or just being nostalgic, but there’s a vibe to it. Like something is lost and he’s trying to find it. That’s the type of music that helped me find Michael Guerin.”

Michael Guerin has chemistry with everyone and everything in Roswell. There are tons of GIFs online that feature Michael looking at other characters. That’s it. Just Michael looking. Vlamis didn’t practice the craft of the smolder. Instead, like many of the other things he shared, building the skill of chemistry was a bit of a double-edged sword. 

“I’m just such an active listener, and I was trained to be that way. My dad taught me that you should never forget a person’s name.”  Vlamis also learned the costs of being a giving person from his father. “Sometimes, he comes home and is exhausted, and he has nothing left to give his family.” Achieving a balance of work and home life is, “something I’ve had to struggle with my whole life,” he said. 

“It’s a part of the reason I went through that breakup. Because if you give everybody everything you’ve got, what do you have left for yourself and the people you’re going home with?” Vlamis questioned.

“I’m not good at holding back. Everything I’ve ever done in my life has been 100 percent. So, when I’m in a conversation with somebody, I’m 100 percent there and I give them everything, whether it’s the gas attendant or the president of Warner Brothers. And that is a bad thing, but it’s also, I think, my biggest gift because when I’m on screen I am fully in it with every single person I’m talking to,” he shared. 

The lessons Vlamis learned from his father have helped him to be fully vulnerable and available as an actor, without fear. 

“I think that’s all it is, is just being so open to letting the person you’re talking to see your insides. And I’m not afraid of that,” he explained. “I know who I am and what I’m capable of. The kind of person I am and want to be. It doesn’t matter if I look ugly on a take or something like that.”

“Before the camera rolls, I might be fixing my hair or something, but once the camera rolls nothing matters except for being connected to the other person. And when you’re fully in it with the other person, other people, when you give them everything you’ve got, it’s pretty hard for someone to not give you something back,” he said. “I think you get what you give and that’s just how I base my acting. I think that’s probably why the chemistry has been the way it is.”

Vlamis shared that fans should buckle in for a wild ride for the last episodes of Roswell, New Mexico‘s first season. 

“For the rest of the season, it just gets crazier and crazier per episode. In so many shows, you have a crazy episode and then you have an episode that sets things up, then it gets crazy again. I will say that moving forward, it’s kind of a free for all with where the show goes.”

Vlamis himself was shocked by the end of this season. “I guarantee what happens in the next episodes wasn’t expected from anyone. It wasn’t even expected from us! We didn’t know what was happening until we saw the episode.”

“You’ll see some really emotional moments and a lot of action. The action definitely picks up the rest of the season,” he divulged. 

Vlamis teased a few Malex details. “You can definitely guarantee that you’re going to see some more screen time with Malex. I’m not going to say if that’s under a friendship phase or a love phase, or what not, but you’ll definitely see us together and battling with the demons that we have because of our love.”

All Michael fans, Vlamis and Guerin, should get especially excited for Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 12, “Creep.”

“Episode 12 is kind of Michael Guerin’s episode. Episode 12 is insane and I think it’s… I think it might be my best performance I’ve ever done,” he said.

“It was one of those days where you’re on set and people who work on the crew come up to you, and they’re crying after your performance. And that had a lot to do with Tyler too. But we did some really strong work in Episode 12,” Vlamis shared.

“Just thinking about it makes me feel heavy,” he disclosed. “Everything comes to a head in Episode 12. And obviously, any resolution happens in [Episode] 13, if there is any. You’ll see what happens.”

Vlamis also teased that there will be some Kyle and Michael matchups in the final episodes. “You will also get to see some scenes with Michael Guerin and Kyle Valenti, which is always fun. Trevino’s the man. It’s so fun working with him.”

“Off-screen we love each other, on screen we don’t like each other, so it’s so fun between takes. We just mess with each other all the time,” he added.

Vlamis provided a final glimpse of what we can expect from the season’s conclusion. 

“All the secrets are unraveling, which is really cool,” Vlamis said. “Michael Guerin is unraveling a little bit. In [‘Songs About Texas’] I’m willing to tell Alex what I am! I’m fed up with secrets, I’m done with this stuff.”

“I think everybody kind of unravels as the show unravels,” he concluded. “When you find out what’s been going on, it’s pretty wild.”

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Make sure you watch Michael Vlamis as Michael Guerin on Roswell, New Mexico, airing Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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