“This season he definitely becomes more of a lone wolf. A big thing that I’ve been saying in interviews that a lot of people don’t really realize, I feel like until I say it, is that Zach has a very sad history. His dad died, the first girl that he kind of liked was Hannah Baker, and we know what happened with her. Another girl that he liked was being repeatedly sexually assaulted by a person he thought was friend, his whole future was taken away with sports,” he said. “He doesn’t really deal with the hot button issues, but I think Zach is very relatable in that sometimes as teenagers, we feel like we’re constantly running into roadblocks or we’re constantly hitting obstacles. And Zach, for me as an actor, the story we’re telling is more of a cautionary tale of like, it’s easy to go down that route and isolate yourself from everybody and to cope by unhealthy means, but that’s not the way to go. Not only are you isolating yourself, but you’re also isolating your friends as far as, like, you aren’t there for them just as much as you’re not letting them be there for you.”
