Walker's Keegan Allen On Liam's Grittier Storyline, LGBTQ+ Representation, And Jared Padalecki - Exclusive Interview

This article contains mild spoilers for upcoming episodes of "Walker."

"Walker" Season 2 started out with a bang in October, and in just six episodes of the second season, everything has changed for our favorite Texas ranger and his family. Lindsey Morgan's departure from the show as Micki left things up in the air at the end of the first half of the season. Now, the show is returning to address the Micki-sized elephant in the room: "Where do we go from here?"

Well, we know that one character, in particular, is walking a tightrope of bad decision-making. Episode 2.06 leaves Liam (Keegan Allen) in a pretty dicey situation, having just filed a false police report, and Cordell (Jared Padalecki) is left to pick up the pieces. Up until this point, the "Pretty Little Liars" alum and "Follow Me" star has played a relatively by-the-book character on "Walker." However, it seems like all of that's about to change in the second half of the season. 

During an exclusive interview with Looper, Keegan Allen dished on Liam's darker character arc, ad-libbing on the "Walker" set, and working with prankster extraordinaire Jared Padalecki. He also teased the return of a familiar face and opened up about the impact of playing an LGBTQ+ character on TV. Allen also noted which "Pretty Little Liars" actor he wants to appear in "Walker."

Up until this season, your character has been the laced-up guy the Walker family can always count on, but now he's throwing punches and submitting false police reports. What has it been like getting to play this unhinged version of Liam, and can we expect him to keep going down this darker path of obsession?

[Laughs] The darker path of obsession. You know, we are getting to see the seismic effects that ruminate the rest of the season from his choices, and Liam, like you said, has always been a very tight, fully self-aware character. We're getting to see what happens when that falls apart — not only within himself and what happens with his career, but with his family, his friends, and his closest relationships, and also how he sees himself. We get to explore that, and the writers have done an amazing, I want to say "immaculate" job at showing what actually happens.

It is a concatenation of events, but as the dominoes fall, [we see] how each thing affects another and the relationship [between] Cordell and Liam. Last season, it was Liam pulling Cordell up from the darkness and being there to hold the family together by the bootstraps. Now, it's beyond the opposite, and so we get to see that dynamic as well. It is wonderful, as an actor, to be able to play a spectrum like that in a character that is so self-aware for him to lose that self-awareness and break his Matrix — his simulation of what he believes is right and wrong, and also to question himself [on] why he's done it. It's a wonderful journey, and the writers have done a really, really exciting job of telling it.

That's exciting. In that vein, I really love that "Walker" takes a more progressive spin than its predecessor. How has it felt to be a part of bringing this Texas story into modern times by playing an accepted and loved gay character instead of the typical doom and gloom angles that [are] often [the] focus of LGBTQ+ relationships on TV?

[With] "Walker," playing this character and being part of this universe, I think it's so important that this is just life. We are living in the 21st century. We are experiencing life as it is. And one of my favorite things about this show in particular and this character is that it doesn't need to highlight anything like that. It's just life, and that's so beautiful to me because growing up, I grew up in West Hollywood, and I never knew that anything was anything. It just was life. 

Seeing that now we're in the heart of Texas, that it is as it is, is just so wonderful to me because it is as it should be. It feels like the flow of life is just the way it is. And I love that. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful character. I enjoy every second of being this character, and I also want to point out that I love that the family loves him. That's so wonderful as he is, and as he comes, he's just accepted and loved and it should be as it should be, you know?

Can you think of any moments where either of you broke on set or ad-libbed any scenes, improvised, anything like that?

Yeah, tons. We're loose cannons. Whenever I work with Jared, I mean, we have ... There's a scene coming up where I'm eating breakfast tacos, and we just get competitive, and it's just ridiculous. There's no reason to do these things, but we are just competitive and ate like 16 tacos in a take. It was nuts. It will probably never see the light of day, but lots of improvisation, always follows very closely to Anna Fricke, Seamus [Kevin Fahey], Steve Robin — following very closely to the lords of this show and the writers and the directors and their visions. It's wonderful because once there is that collaboration, the creative collaboration of the show is just so, so vast. We can paint outside the lines very, very easily because of how much freedom we have within our character's range. Lots of that has been happening, and it's very freeing as an actor to have that.

Can you think of any moments that made it to the final product?

I think there [were] a couple in, I don't know if it stayed, 2.06, playing like inebriated and I was just getting into it, I was like flowing, and I said something like, "A peppermint woo woo." It was just a joke, but it became this big deal on set. It was funny, and so the sound people made a peppermint woo woo. They made it, like the props, they made it, and then we hid it as an Easter egg throughout the season now.

It's just the candy bar. It says, "Peppermint Woo Woo." I don't know why that happened. It was just an improv thing that went out of hand, and I think it made it to the final. I don't know, maybe it did. I think it did make it through to the final episode, which is just so funny.

What has been your favorite prank or the one that caught you the most off guard?

Oh, gosh. You know, the props department did something really funny recently. They gave me this little ... There's, in scripts as an actor, they'll have [notes like] "This is a very hard pill to swallow for Liam." Well, Scott in props, he has [this] little TikTok/Instagram reels page where he does these ... they're the best puns on earth. He is so funny, and I highly suggest you follow him. They came up to me, and they said, "Here, you're going to probably need this for the scene." And it was just Altoids like mints, but it said, "Hard pill to swallow."

It really was way too funny. I don't know why, but I could barely keep it together. That was fun. And also, there was a scene in 2.06 with Coby Bell. Coby and I, we are straight as an arrow with scenes. We don't break, but there was just something about shooting that day where we just thought it was the funniest thing ever — couldn't stop laughing. So, I don't know. Sometimes it's just little things, like not being able to make eye contact. And then you're just like, "Oh, here we go."

You starred in "Pretty Little Liars" for seven years. Is there someone from that show that you'd like to see on "Walker"?

Gosh, that's a good question that no one has asked me yet. I don't know. Someone that instantly comes to mind is a very rugged individual, and I just genuinely love so much. I mean, I love all of them. They're all my family, "Pretty Little Liars." My family. I feel like Ian Harding would be fun because he's gotten very rugged over the years. He's an ornithologist by I trade, so he could come out here and help me figure out some Texas birds.

Honestly, anybody from the show I feel could live in the "Walker" universe very comfortably. They're all incredible actors, and even though we know them in certain roles, they're stamped with certain characters. All the actors from "PLL" — they're so versatile, and they're so talented. They could live in the "Walker" universe or any universe, for that matter, quite comfortably.