"Hey Shaun, how are you brother? You good?"

I have never met Cliff Curtis, nor even talked to him on the phone before, but somehow a chat with one of New Zealand's most successful actors feels a little like catching up with an old mate.

Of course, he's far from the first to figure out that charming the journalist you're speaking to probably doesn't hurt whatever you're trying to plug (in this case the upcoming third season of zombie drama Fear The Walking Dead), but the former state ward, altar boy and builder-turned-drama student really does seem - well, real.

SUPPLIED Cliff Curtis is back battling zombies in a third season of Fear The Walking Dead.

He's jokey, he's blokey - and his answers to my questions feel refreshingly frank and honest. In some cases almost alarmingly so.

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For instance, towards the end of season two, Curtis' Fear The Walking Dead character Travis Manawa brutally beats two men to death after learning that they killed his son.

MICHAEL DESMOND/AMC Cliff Curtis has his game face on as Travis Manawa in season three of Fear The Walking Dead.

"Under the circumstances, can you relate to the things Travis has done?" I ask Curtis, referencing the scene. The 48-year-old father of three's response is clear and unequivocal.

"Dude, if somebody killed my son in some unsavoury manner, I'm sorry, but I don't have a problem with that - I can totally relate to that [killing them in retribution]. Or my daughter - it's like, nah, nah, nah, that's not going to fly with me. I'm not going to go and talk to somebody about it."

"I can totally relate to that as a character choice."

Tempering his answer somewhat, Curtis explains where he thinks his character's head was at when he beat his son's killers to death.

"I think any parent that's lost a child in tragic circumstances - I think you lose a part of your heart, and a part of your soul. I think you kind of go a bit numb. And you're much more inclined to do things outside of your moral code that you mightn't have done otherwise.

"We've seen two seasons of Travis sort of struggling with his moral self, his conscience. And I think that's done - no more of that Travis is left. Life becomes a lot simpler for Travis now in season three."

Continuing on the theme of character motivation, Curtis then launches into an hilarious two-minute riff on what he would do if he walked into the lounge to find a zombie eating a dog in front of him (as happened to Travis in an early episode of Fear The Walking Dead).

The printed word probably doesn't do it justice, and it's going to use up all the room I have left for this story, but I feel obligated to preserve it here, if only for the sake of posterity.

"Some of the choices that Travis made, I'm going - eh?" says Curtis. "That fulla's eating a dog in your lounge bro - take care of the business. You know what I mean?"

"I had an argument with the writers and the director - I'm going, 'I don't care who that fulla is who's eating a dog in my lounge. A fulla comes in my lounge and starts eating a dog, I'm dealing to the situation right here and now. I'm not asking questions. I don't need to know what drug that fulla's on. It's like, somebody go and get me the vacuum cleaner cord, I'm tying this fulla up and I'm hanging him up outside! That fulla's not staying in my house. No way'."

"And they were like, 'Oh no, no, no, no - you're an English teacher'. I don't care what kind of English teacher I am! No fulla's coming in my house and eating a dog! And I argued about it but in the end it was like, 'OK, I'll do what you want but that doesn't make any sense to me at all'.

"Some fulla's coming into my lounge and eating a feed of dog on the floor - and I'm going to be trying to talk to him? Hell no. No way man - I'm going to find a couch and stomp it on his head. Or get him outside or anything, you know? It's like, get a stick, a broom, anything - get the vacuum cleaner or something, just get that fulla out of the house. Ah, you better go away bro!" Curtis finishes, laughing.

That said, the Kiwi actor who's played everyone from Pablo Escobar to Jesus Christ (and soon to be a blue-skinned alien) does recognise that when it comes to the zombie apocalypse, all bets are off.

"I suppose you and I can talk about what we think we would do in an apocalypse, but if a fulla really was a zombie in our lounge, we might just kind of mimi our pants, you know? You and I can talk about how staunch we might be, but in reality we really don't know what we'd do. Nobody knows."

Fear The Walking Dead, SoHo, Mondays, 5pm and streaming on Neon from June 5.