Life on FROM is full of many downs, and no one knows that better than Ellis Stevens.
His journey has seen a lot of heartache, though we’re seeing a bit of a different man in FROM Season 2, as Ellis works to rebuild a broken relationship with his father and continues to solidify the relationship with the love of his life.
TV Fanatic got to speak with Ellis’s portrayer, the charming and bright Corteon Moore, who was incredibly candid about his character’s continued journey.
Corteon was nothing short of fantastic to speak with and had some great insight into Ellis, his relationships, and what we’ll see from him as the season unfolds.
This one is for you, FROM fanatics, so dig in!
One of my favorite parts about FROM Season 1 was, at the very end, watching Ellis and Boyd start to rebuild the relationship. Can you speak to how Ellis feels about their relationship now and developing this new dynamic because the relationship will be different now?
Yeah, I would hope it’s going to take on a whole new life because where we met these two people, it really wasn’t good. It was not great. It was not healthy.
And now that Ellis has taken the responsibility of his mother’s death away from his father and away from himself, I think they’re kind of at this new place of just being able to say, “I love you, you love me. I want to get the hell out of here. I want to support you.”
Now, where does that leave us?
I think it’s just really new, kind of awkward at times. It’s kind of like Ellis is growing up. He’s treating himself as this new man, but he still needs his pops. So it’s like a weird transitionary period.
But I think they’re building themselves up to a trustworthy and efficient relationship because they also need to be able to work together because they need to get the hell out of this place. And I think neither of them knows where they’re going, but they know they want to stay together.
Yeah, and Boyd is one important relationship for Ellis, but he also has this relationship and this partnership that he’s formed with Fatima. What does that relationship mean to Ellis?
I think that relationship means the world to Ellis. If not for Fatima, God knows what would’ve happened to Ellis before she came into town. On top of Fatima being arguably one of the strongest and most resilient people in this entire town, she’s also this light and exactly what people like Ellis need.
She’s not afraid to say the cold, hard truth. She was the first person to say, “If you don’t go and talk to your dad, you’re going to regret this for the rest of your life.”
Ellis is a little bit of a meanie, so people probably didn’t say that to him very much. And I think Ellis knows that.
Ellis has always been like, I know I am nothing without you. I know that I could never get through a day without you, and I love you. And I think he just wants to hold onto her for as long as he possibly can.
Because without her, he may as well be dead, really.
As we see Ellis go through season two, is there anything you feel you learned about Ellis during this season that maybe we didn’t see from him in season one?
Yeah, I didn’t realize how little Ellis thought of other people sometimes in season one. And I think when I first realized that, I was like, “What the hell? Was that my fault? Wait, wait, how did this happen?” But I think it just makes sense.
He was so caught up in his own grief. He was so caught up in his own pain that now we meet him in season two, and I realized it as we were shooting it.
I realized that when we were shooting FROM Season 2 Episode 3 with Kelly when she was on the tree, it was the first time where Ellis even had the room, the emotional space to say, holy, “What is happening with this person?”
And feel so deeply about it and want nothing more than to help them because he’s finally freed as much as possible from the pain of losing his mom. Yeah, that was really interesting.
I don’t know that I really saw that in season one, but now that you’ve mentioned it, I can definitely see it.
He wasn’t the most selfish, but I think it was more so that he was just incapable of fully giving away all that he was. But he’s still just a young guy trying to find moments of happiness. We saw it when he built Julie the room. You saw it when they went to the Brundles. He had those moments.
But in my brain, he runs into Kelly in season one, and he could just be completely reminded of all of the pain he’s had in his past, and he has to pass it to Kenny. At least now he’s like, “I’m going to do what I can to help you.” That’s a new side of him, but I’m happy he’s there.
If you could pitch a storyline for Ellis, something he hasn’t gotten to do yet, what would that be?
I instantly have it. I want more stuff with Ricky. Ricky, he’s one of my best friends. I love working with him. I think he’s a world-class actor. I think he and I work really well together.
We have so much fun on set.
Now if I could pitch exactly what it’d be, it’d be him and I, we go out into the woods as a task force, and I got a bow and arrow, and he’s got a machete, and we start hacking away at these monsters, add a talisman to a bow or something, I don’t know.
I want to go out on an action adventure with Ricky.
I want to see that. I could see you guys being besties on the show too.
What else can we expect to see from Ellis throughout the rest of the season?
You can expect Ellis to continue to grow up. He’s fully coming into the man that I think he’s always wanted to be. Luckily he’s got his father figures even closer to him than we’d seen in the past. I think you can expect Ellis to continue to struggle a lot, though.
It’s a really hard place to live, but at its core, I think you can continue to see Ellis do all the things that we know and hopefully love him for.
We see him giving all that he has to Fatima and giving all he has to try to get through the day. And then I think you could see a lot of scary moments depending on what episode you’re on. It’s a wild ride.
***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***
You can watch FROM on MGM+ on Sundays at 9/8c.
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
