Bob Morley Thinks Fans Should Expect Some Changes In The Fifth Season Of 'The 100'

Many a Hollywood actor has busted out of Australian soap operas - including Heath Ledger, Chris Hemsworth and Margot Robbie. Now Bob Morley is trailing them.

Raised in rural Kyneton, Victoria, Morley stumbled into drama studies at uni, initially acting on stage. In 2006, he was cast in Home & Away (H&A) as hunky bad boy Andrew "Drew" Curtis. Later, Morley joined Neighbours, his character Aidan Foster and James Mason's Chris Pappas representing the show's first gay couple. In 2013, Morley relocated to the US, where he'd soon secure the leading role of anti-hero Bellamy Blake in The CW's sci-fi hit The 100. 

Based on Kass Morgan's young adult novel, and with Jason Rothenberg as showrunner, The 100 is set in the distant future, post-nuclear apocalypse. Bellamy is the guard-cum-leader of 100-ish teen outcasts sent back to Earth from The Ark space colony to test the planet's habitability. These 'Sky People' discover survivors called 'Grounders'.

As a genre TV star, Morley has embraced the pop convention circuit with its sense of "community". He's heading to Supanova 2018 just weeks after a whirlwind trip home for a wedding. Morley's The 100 co-star Lindsey Morgan (aka space mechanic Raven Reyes) is also a 'Supa-Star' panel guest, as is his rumoured girlfriend, RWBY voice actor Arryn Zech. But Aussies have long memories. "In Australia, I get questions about H&A and Neighbours, which is kind of fun for me, because it's been 12 years or so since I started on H&A," Morley drawls, his dog barking in the background. "So it's a bit nostalgic." Ironically, on quitting H&A, Morley rued to News Corp that he'd felt like "a meat puppet".

At cons, Morley will hit the floor himself to scope out merch. And, while occasionally "too terrified" to approach other celebrity guests, he has met some of his own heroes. "One of the big stands-outs for me was meeting Ralph Macchio and Billy Zabka and the guys from [The] Karate Kid. I grew up watching that, like, almost every week. I got to meet those guys at a Phoenix convention. They were really lovely."

Morley's appearance at Supanova is auspicious, with the fifth run of The 100 premiering Stateside on 24 April. The dystopian drama has an intense fandom centred on 'shipping' (fans backing desired romantic relationships between characters) with that between Bellamy and his fellow Arker Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor, likewise a Neighbours alum) dubbed 'Bellarke'. However, the TV adaptation introduced a huge fan fave in Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), the Grounders' Commander and a nuanced lesbian character. Her romance with the bisexual Clarke, known as 'Clexa', was acclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community. Yet, in season three, following Clexa's much-anticipated consummation, Lexa was randomly killed. Betrayed viewers protested TV's 'Bury Your Gays' trope, where LGBTQIA+ characters are deemed expendable.

The 100's fourth season finale saw Bellamy's group returning to space to escape a radioactive death wave, leaving Clarke behind. "We basically pick up from that six-year time-jump," Morley reveals. "Clarke and the Eligius [Corporation space] ship has come down, Bellamy and his team are still up in space, and [Bellamy's sister] Octavia is still in the bunker... Then, as it goes on, Bellamy and his team will make it back down to earth. But the relationship with his sister and the relationship with Clarke and this new Eligius crew is totally different. Everything that you knew about those characters has really changed. Clarke has taken on this surrogate daughter in Madi and Bellamy, to my surprise, has actually turned into quite a sensible, rational human being. So that's been quite a challenge for me to play this season!"

While today wary of wading into oft-personalised ship wars, Morley does relate to Bellamy. "I'm totally irrational, but I'm passionate," he ponders. "I really love my family and whatnot... I'm not as aggressive as Bellamy. I'm definitely not as tough as Bellamy. Maybe in my head I think I'm as tough as him, but I'm not in real life. But I love playing Bellamy. He's very complicated. He kind of fits in a grey area a lot and that is something that I find very interesting. He can polarise the audience, which I quite like as well."

The CW network is synonymous with genre programs - and its actors do reappear. Could Bellamy portray, say, a superhero-type in the Arrow universe? "Nah, no, I wouldn't wanna play a superhero," he quips. "I'd be on iZOMBiE! But I wouldn't wanna play a superhero. I don't know - all the suits and the special powers, I like that Bellamy's low-tech and he's not necessarily the brightest all the time. He kind of comes from the simpler time, even though he's in the future."

The 100 airs from 30 May on Fox 8.