Stephanie Beatriz talks crazy stunts, survival, and love in 'Twisted Metal' season 2

I would call it a very zany, off-the-wall, dark gallows humor action series with a lot of comedy and strangely topical ethical themes. If you look at it through the right lens, our show reflects the world that we’re living in now, where some people have a whole lot and others have very little, and why is the dichotomy so huge? And how can we as people try to even it out for everybody and make it a better place? But within that, there's always gonna be people that are just out for themselves. So if you're in this post-apocalyptic lawless place, you're gonna experience a lot of that. 

Our show also has this element of nostalgia and adolescent humor that I think makes it really fun. 

There's way more prep. There’s way more involvement in the stunts, and that’s very exciting. It's not just about hitting a mark with your feet on the ground. It’s hitting a mark while you're driving a car in a giant circle and are doing a bunch of donuts. 

A lot of our stunts this year were practical. If it’s not me or Anthony Mackie driving the cars, then it’s our stunt operators doing it from the top of the car. They basically kitted out the car so that its controls are on the top, with the driver in a cage there. And we the actors are inside the car, so we’re still going just as fast as they’re driving. And that’s really challenging but also, I think it’s one of my favorite parts of being on the show. You're going so fast, and it's so crazy, and all this stuff is happening around you, and you're still acting while you're driving. It feels real. There's nothing else like it. I definitely have caught the speed bug from being on this show. 

Quiet’s created her own community within the Dolls. She was captured by them at the end of last season. 

The Dolls are essentially a girl gang led by Doll Face, who’s their leader, who also happens to be John Doe’s sister. 

At the beginning of the season, you see that Quiet’s really established herself within the community and feels pretty safe there. Now that John has come back into her life, she's kind of wondering ‘What do I do with this relationship, and am I still in it? Do I still wanna be in it?’ 

She's also become a better driver since the last time we saw her. It's been seven months since the end of season one. There’s this new element at play, which is Calypso, essentially our big bad guy, who’s announced this incredible tournament that anyone from anywhere can enter. And if you win, your greatest wish is granted. Quiet desperately wants to win because her wish is to bring the walls down of all the cities everywhere. She wants that no matter what, because she knows that it's gonna make the world a better place, or at least, she thinks that. But I don't think she sees how dastardly and villainous other people can be. 

There's this scene in season one where she and John have had sex in the ball pit. And they’re having this post-coital conversation. She’s talking about an ex-lover, and I believe the lover’s name is Adrian, which we kept gender-neutral because we wanted to keep that door open, you know, maybe Quiet is bisexual or queer. And we don't know who has been in her past. We do know that she's had some partners, and that she's never really been in love. And I think she's still thinking of herself as a free agent. She and John never said that they were together. So, especially at the beginning of the season, you see her surrounded by the Dolls, and many of them are very gorgeous women. You only live once. It’s the apocalypse. What’s stopping you from kissing some really hot babes while you’re trying to survive? (laughs).

I loved any time that I got to work with the women on season two. I'm gonna mention a few of them now: Patty Guggenheim, who plays Raven, Lisa Gilroy, who plays Vermin, Saylor Bell Curda, who plays Mayhem, and Tiana Okoye, who plays Dollface. The scenes with them were just so fun. It was great to have a different energy on set. 

We were shooting in Toronto, so I had left my friend group in Los Angeles. And making new friends is always hard as an adult. And here you are in this situation where you’re all thrown together in this new environment, and you’re all trying to give it your best. So it felt so wonderful to be able to, as someone who has been in the show since the first season, to welcome them and say like ‘Hey, we’re in this together. We're an ensemble.’To use a British expression, I was chuffed. It’s always amazing to make new friends, and it was super awesome to work with incredible actors and women and to just be around them.

That's a good question. I don't know what advice I would give because I don’t know who I’m talking to specifically, but it’s very nice to be looked up to as a person. I try to be as kind and honest as I possibly can be. I try to live with a series of values and ethics that feel true to me and that allow me to see the humanity in everybody else at all times. 

Maybe this is trite, but ever since becoming a mom, I see my kid and I see how great she is. And then you look around, you're like, ‘Oh, this was everybody.’ Every single one of us was in diapers at one point. And some of us were lucky and got parents that were loving and kind and generous and wonderful. And some of us were not that lucky. So I think when I come across a difficulty, I always try to lead from a place of love. That sounds very cheesy, but I think that’s honest.