Alyvia Alyn Lind Talks Netflix’s Wayward and Leila’s Journey on the Show

Despite it being a miniseries, Wayward has made waves on Netflix as Mae Martin’s dark found family story has topped the charts. The series features Alyvia Alyn Lind as Leila, a prominent character whose arc might feel familiar to those who’ve seen Lind’s previous works.

I recently got to speak with Lind about what made her relate to Leila’s journey throughout Wayward, how Lind’s characters from Chucky and The Spiderwick Chronicles have impacted her performance, and more. (You can watch the full interview below.)

With Martin’s miniseries becoming the platform’s most popular show for a few weeks, Lind had high praise for how fans approached and enjoyed this character-centric narrative.

“I could not be more ecstatic with how the show is being received,” Lind noted. “I think that, when we were filming it, we all knew how much of an important story of it is. So, seeing that people are watching it, loving it, and receiving it, we couldn’t ask for anything more!”

“There’s so many people out there that have chosen family and don’t have that love and care with their blood family, and so they find it with other people,” Lind said. “I think that with Abbie and Leila, that’s the best showing of that.”

Leila in Wayward is best known for initially putting up a confident bravado with her best friend, Abbie. However, her personality changes when she’s thrown into Evelyn’s system. Lind described what made Leila’s transformation resonate with her.

“Her unraveling was so important to me to, first of all, just make sure I keep exact track of throughout the series,” Lind said.

“It was really important to me to show her at the beginning of the series, so wall up [and] not letting anybody through barely, even letting Abby through at times, you come to find out.”

“Then, throughout the series, [it’s] really knowing the points where she breaks and knowing the points where we see through and making sure they’re very deliberate and like very well placed so that it doesn’t feel like by the end of the series it’s coming out of nowhere,” Lind explained.

Lind stars alongside Sydney Topliffe, who plays Leila’s best friend, Abbie, who’s sent to Tall Pines due to her troubled family life. Lind shared what it was like to develop that friendship with Topliffe from the first chemistry reads to the actual filming.

“Sydney and I’s connection only grew from the first time we met each other,” Lind described. “We had such an instant connection, and then throughout the filming process, we just became sillier and weirder and just had so much more fun throughout the entire filming process.”

“Throughout the series, I just got to see even more of her crazy personality. We would make little movies in between takes and, one time on set, we remade ‘Bet On It’ from High School Musical. We were filming these dark scenes and going to these dark places and then she’d be like, ‘Wanna make a movie?'”

Viewers will also recognize Lind from playing Lexy throughout Chucky and Calliope from The Spiderwick Chronicles. However, these recent roles share much in common.

“Lexy and Leila are extremely similar in a lot of ways, in my opinion,” Lind stated, noting that they are “both drug addicts at some point [and have] found family.”

“I think that’s why it also was a little bit easier when I got the role of Leila,” she said. “I had already kind of been through that found family journey with Jake and Devin. It was kind of the exact same feeling with Leila where she finds that family in Abbie.”

Lind also discussed the complexities that trauma plays on this trifecta of troubled characters and how Lexy and Calliope related back to Leila in the end.

“Leila finds eventually that connection to be toxic because she’s using her as a defense mechanism to hide her trauma,” Lind added. “In Jake, Lexy, and Devin’s case, I think that they’re actually doing it in a pretty healthy way that they’ve used it to trauma bond rather than trauma dump.”

“With Calliope, she’s just such a little weirdo! I mean, she’s been alive for so many years. She’s so evil and so weird, and then she also has an incredible arc over the season where she finds love and finds something true.”

For those who have also watched The Spiderwick Chronicles, the series was left open-ended on some mysterious circumstances. Though Roku reported that the show was the most-watched series on the platform, a potential Season 2 has not been in the cards just yet.

“I have not heard literally anything about Spiderwick, which is so sad to me because it was such a fun show to work,” Lind recalled. “The cast and everybody still keep in touch, and it’s definitely still alive in our hearts.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it so far, but if there ever was anything in the future, then sign me up!”

Though Lind has played characters with difficult problems, the actress wants to explore more archetypes and roles. Specifically, there was one that came to mind for Lind.

“I mean, the options are endless,” Lind said. “I want to play something crazy like a superhero or something, where I have to like train and get super jacked and like sword fight and go crazy would be so fun. I used to say a mutant, but then I played Calliope.”

Watch the full interview with Alyvia Alyn Lind:

Lind also recalled filming Wayward‘s more difficult scenes with some major moments revolving around the “hot seat.” These intense therapeutic scenes saw Leila and Abbie being called out by their peers in a group circle overseen by the cold Evelyn. 

“After those days, we would all be in the van on the way back to the hotel just sitting and looking at each other just being like, ‘We did our job today,’ like we did what we were supposed to do today,” Lind explained. “I remember John Daniels, who plays Rory, said that!”

“I think that those scenes were so rewarding because they were the hardest to film and they were the most mentally grueling to film,” Lind added. “The outcome was so incredible, and John Daniels and [Isolde Ardies], they’re so incredible.

“In the first hot seat, getting to watch them and watch the rest of the kids do that and go into that place that was so dark, it was so insanely inspiring and incredible to watch.”

All of this ultimately leads to Leila being broken down to her lowest point, with no family or other friends left to turn to in the end. Lind recalled what it was like filming Leila’s tragic ending in Wayward.

“It was so sad, we were bawling — crying in real life,” Lind recalled. “None of those were fake tears because it was at the end of filming, and so we knew we were gonna have to say bye to each other soon.”

“I read that and I was like, ‘No, Leila, what are you doing?!’ I wanted to shake her, and she’s like, ‘No, don’t do this, you worked so hard to get to where you are!’ That was my personal thing with it.”

“I would have loved to see them, in my personal opinion of being protective of these characters, both go to Vancouver and live out their life and be happy and have no problems ever happen to them ever again, but unfortunately, can’t have it all!”

—

Wayward is currently streaming on Netflix.

Follow us on X and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!