How Robert Sheehan was screwed out of part in Walking Dead spin-off

Love/Hate and Misfits star Robert Sheehan opens up in the new issue of Hot Press love, homesickness, his latest film The Road Within and some recent experiments with magic mushrooms. Sheehan also reveals how he missed out on some huge TV roles due to mismanagement by opportunistic agents. In this world exclusive, the actor reveals how he was cast - and subsequently uncast in upcoming prequel series Fear The Walking Dead: 
While still adjusting to LA – “I was still all at sea here in the US"– Sheehan was offered a major part in a “really, really big televisual project”, that the actor nevertheless felt wasn’t quite up to scratch. Eager to have him on board, the show’s creator met with him, and offered to collaborate with the actor to create a richer, more dynamic character and storyline. Sheehan agreed, and was just allowing himself to picture his new life as huge TV star and household name in the States, when it all went suddenly, horribly wrong.   
“My agent – who is not my agent anymore – took this to mean that now, we could do whatever the fuck we wanted. They were really, overly aggressive in the negotiation with the network, and long story short, fucked up the negotiation. I found out later the organisation felt they had no other option than to stop even trying to talk to my representation, and had to hire somebody else. I thought, Dear God. It was a really frightening moment, because I went from looking at the next four years of my life, to realising that my agent, who I had trusted with my job, had just completely fucked me over."
“It was weirdly like being in an abusive relationship,” he observes, “because I was talking to my U.K. agent who was saying ‘They really fucked up, we should consider leaving’ and I was like ‘But they’re a big name, do we really have a choice?’ She had to literally tell me ‘You always have a choice.’ We tried to get them to explain themselves and they wouldn’t – there’s a lot of megalomaniacs out here who never have to explain themselves – and I just had this shock of ‘You’ve had my career in your hands.’ So I sacked them immediately. That was really disappointing, and scary, because out here you’re just in the hands of these lunatic egomaniac agents, particularly the corporate ones, who base their model on Wall Street. You’re just a stock, it’s very inhumane how they work out here.”
I ask him what the TV show was, and can feel his disappointment radiating as he tells me that “at the time, it was called Fear The Walking Dead. It’s watching the fall of humanity – Walking Dead but before the virus took hold of humanity. Biggest show in the world, Roe” he laughs bitterly to journo Roe McDermott. “Biggest show in the world.”
For more with Sheehan, pick up the latest Hot Press (Electric Picnic special) out now.
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