🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
After the untimely cancellation of Manifest in 2021, star Matt Long took a few weeks to grieve, then tried to move on. The actor booked a role in a pilot for a new show, only to find out the next day that Manifest might be poised for an unexpected resurrection. Talk about good news/bad news.
“I’m so invested in [Manifest], and I desperately wanted to finish telling the story,” Long tells Tudum. “I love my character so much, and to miss a moment of playing him would have broken my heart.”
Ultimately, the talks about a potential Netflix revival bore fruit, but Long was still committed to his possible new show. Unsure whether he’d be able to reprise his role of Zeke, an empath helping Flight 828’s passengers stay alive, Long stayed in communication with Manifest creator Jeff Rake. After weeks of hoping, they finally got the news that Long’s pilot would not move forward, and he’d be free to return for the sci-fi drama’s final season.
Once all the paperwork was signed, Rake and Long went out to lunch, where the writer gave Long another shocking twist to digest: Zeke would die in the midseason finale.
“He sat me down and told me everything,” Long recalls. “He told me about the [series] finale. He also told me that Zeke was going to give his life to save Cal, and therefore, hopefully, save the lifeboat and everyone on planet Earth. That was hard to hear, but also I loved the way it was going to go down.”
“[Jeff]’s such a great storyteller that I was emotional at lunch just hearing it,” he continues. “I love my character so much, and I feel so close to him, because he’s had such a powerful story. He’s carried so much shame. And so hearing about what was going to happen to him just really moved me, even though it meant that I wasn’t going to be in it quite as much, which is a bummer.”
Long kept the secret from his colleagues during filming, determined to make Zeke’s eventual sacrifice feel earned.
“As we were going along, I was trying to keep in mind we’re building towards this moment,” he says. “Is he getting to a desperate enough place? I started thinking about it before we started shooting and how he got there. I thought it would be nice if he struggled with his empathic ability, and how he’s becoming overloaded with these things that he’s taking from people; he just can’t, it’s too much and he can’t bear it anymore.”
That pressure also leads to a lapse in Zeke’s sobriety. “He’s like a sponge [with his ability] — he’s not getting rid of [the trauma],” Long points out. “He’s just soaking it up, and it’s just building and building. [His relapse] is another burden to bear, another shameful thing to carry around. It’s another layer of depth and richness as an actor to be able to play. He’s really reached his bottom.”
But with Cal (Ty Doran) on the verge of succumbing to his cancer, Zeke realizes he can save the young man — which might have implications for the rest of humanity as well. To keep Zeke’s grand gesture grounded, Long kept thinking about the people closest to his character.
“He’s saving Cal and he’s saving Michaela, but he’s also giving up his life with her,” Long acknowledges. “And we all know what she means to him. That’s the ultimate sacrifice, what he’s about to do. All these things go through his head and it has to be believable, organic, as much as we can make it.”
“Zeke has also been a character, maybe more than any [other] character, that has had complete and utter faith in the callings,” he continues. “He never questioned them when he started getting them, and was always game, had ultimate faith. So it made sense he would not question this new information.”
It was hard to say goodbye to Zeke and to Manifest, but as Long was filming his final days, he found that the limbo the show was in after Season 3 had helped his grieving process.
“I started to say, ‘Oh, this is the last moment we’re going to have like this; this is the last time that [Zeke and Michaela will] know each other as a married couple,’” Long recalls. “It was poignant and emotional at times. But I really mourned the show at the end of Season 3; I would go back and look at photos and videos I posted, because this show and this character [have] meant so much to me.”
“So all these moments in Season 4, because I’d already mourned the show, in a way, [were a bonus],” he continues. “It was also a lot of gratitude and feeling really at peace with it, because I was so thankful that I got to be able to come back and have these moments at all. It was just gravy that we got to do this to begin with. This just doesn’t happen.”
Nevertheless, filming Zeke’s extended death sequence — the phone call to Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) to say goodbye and her arrival at his side just before he dies — was rough on the actors.
“It was horrible, heartbreaking,” Roxburgh admits. “[The call was] so full of everything they’ve been through together, and how much he loves her and how much he really devoted his life to the Stone family, to Michaela specifically. And he’s just such an empath in the show, that with his death, the entire show bleeds. I got a little bit emotional… knowing that it was the end of Michaela and Zeke, in the moment. He really had been her rock.”
Despite Zeke’s past penchant for escaping death, Long confirms the character does know this fate is permanent. “I did not play it in a way that he had held out hope [for a revival],” he says. “Because that takes away from the sacrifice of it. And, to me, it cheapens the moment if he thinks, ‘Oh, it’s not gonna be real.’ He’s doing this knowing full well that this is the end of his life. It’s such a beautiful, incredible action to take to help these people that saved him.”
As he says his final farewell to Manifest, Long shares that he’s just grateful for the journey.
“I’ve been working for almost 20 years, and I’ve been looking for a show like this the whole time,” he says. “The first job I ever had was a show called Jack & Bobby, and it was such an incredible experience. I’ve done a lot of shows since then that I love, but never had the opportunity to play a character or work with people this great for this long. It’s just been a dream come true. We’re so grateful for the outpouring of emotion and passion and support that we’ve gotten from the fans. None of us will ever forget this experience.”
