Daybreak: Austin Crute talks Wesley’s personality and adding his own flair

Austin Crute plays Wesley Fists in Daybreak. In this exclusive interview, he talks about the personality and sides to Wesley you don’t know.

Daybreak has now been released and you’ll get the chance to meet the various characters. Wesley Fists is one of them, and he’s a character with plenty of layers to pull back. Austin Crute took the time to chat about his character, including his own flair that he’s been able to add to the role.

Netflix Life: What was it about Wesley that drew you into this role in the first place?

Austin Crute: The self-mastery was what made we want to dive into Wesley. Personally, I was going through my own season of emotional checks, spiritual checks, electrical checks between me and my friends, just making sure that I’m aligned and doing what I need to do for myself and feeding the energy into the universe that I want to receive back.

Then, this high schooler comes to my emails. He’s a samurai, doing sword work masterfully. He’s helping his friends reach a place of similar self-alignment and self-awareness that he’s achieved on his own.

I love that he’s not the stereotypical jock. Even when they don’t realize they need him, he is there. He’s more than just a jock. We’ve seen it a million times. The jock going after the nice girl not in the same clique. They’re star-crossed lovers. What’s interesting about Wesley, is that his love interest is found in the same clique. You don’t tend to see that.

We all know that one person in high school that we saw a problem with, but wasn’t really a problem kid. I think Wesley kind of follows that trope where the people that he’s been called to associate with, the people he is forced to go to practice with, they lead a lifestyle that maybe if he was not a football star, maybe if he was something else, he would be doing something different. He would be acting a different way, but he’s been influenced.

Even though he has the potential to be an influencer, he’s an impressionable boy. When Hoyles is your best friend and just the biggest, baddest bully in the whole school, that is going to rub off. So when the apocalypse came and all those walls broke down, it was an opportunity for him to come into himself and become who he needed to be for himself without acclaim, without a trial. I think he did a pretty good job.

NL: He did. Can you tease of what it’s like for Wesley now that the friends he had in high school are on the opposite side of this war?

Crute: He had to completely shed the attachments that he has had to his old self and the status quo of what the old world was because the status quo did not go away. It has transformed into tribes. So, he has chosen to leave the status quo he was formerly attached to, and it speaks volumes about who he is as a person.

The jocks still want him to come back. It wasn’t like he got fired. He was in Mona Lisa’s position before, and now, in the New World Order, he has chosen to develop a life of peace and tranquility. He’s able to achieve these things with Josh, Angelica, and even Eli, who would not be in his circle before the apocalypse.

Honestly, Turno is mad. I imagine Turbo sees Wesley as someone to look up to, someone who can choose their own path, someone who has self-awareness. Turbo is scared.

NL: Every episode is told from a different viewpoint. We get to see the characters as themselves, but that’s not quite the case for Wesley’s version, right?

Crute: Absolutely. The storytelling evolves as the season progresses. Episode five is where you really get to see Wesley’s upbringing. You know how he got into all the samurai stuff and why he really wants to commit himself to the culture and how he and Turbo got involved.

We see more layers to Wesley than he sees to himself. He’s an introverted guy, but he has a lot of more influence than Turbo or the others. He has a lot more cool factor or star power than he would admit that he has, and he has always let Turbo take the front seat.

When prom comes around, he was expecting Josh to win Homecoming King. He was not expecting to win, even though he is a performer. But his work ethic for himself is not his star power.

The same things that torment his mind and the same things that torment others’ minds, because everybody’s tormented. But it’s like what is tormenting you? There are more honorable things to be tormented by.

Wesley puts himself down but he’s noble. I think you’ll see more as the season progresses.

What’s interesting is you see everyone else kind of narrating their own story. Wesley doesn’t even want to tell his own story. Even though, at first, he seems extra in your face, he wants someone else to tell his story.

NL: Have you been able to add your own flair to this character in Daybreak?

Crute: I would say absolutely. The bit in the school talking about the sword was my audition. I walked onto the set, ready to be a bully. I was excited, ready to be a leader. It’s fun to play around in the world. But yes, there’s the line walking up to Dick’s Sporting Goods and I say, “those are some chains chains.” I got to make the character more natural and modern.

Aron is a genius. He would observe all the little things I would do and then continue to develop the character. Each script would be more like me.

You can watch Daybreak on Netflix right now.