‘The Equalizer’: Laya DeLeon Hayes on What’s Ahead for Delilah After Season 3 Finale [Exclusive]
CBS’s The Equalizer has ended on another cliffhanger. Season 3 of the Queen Latifah-led action-drama wrapped up on May 21 with an intense episode that saw Robyn McCall and her team in a dramatic (and unresolved) showdown with one of her former CIA colleagues.
Meanwhile, the stakes were nearly as high for Robyn’s daughter Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) and Aunt Vi (Lorraine Toussaint), who headed out to see a movie and ended up in a hostage situation when a robber pulled a gun on an unsuspecting store clerk. Showbiz Cheat Sheet chatted with Hayes about what went down in “Eye for an Eye” and what it might mean for her character heading into season 4.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Equalizer Season 3 finale.]
Delilah was acting on instinct in ‘The Equalizer’ Season 3 finale
I love your dynamic with Lorraine Toussaint, who you get a lot of time with in this episode. You’ve worked with her throughout the show, but what was it like working with her specifically in this episode?
Oh my goodness. Every time I work with both Queen and Lorraine, and in this episode, mostly Lorraine, it’s just a masterclass working with both of them. She has such wonderful scenes. It’s a robbery sequence and she has to find a way to de-escalate the situation. And all I got to do is kind of watch her and really see her have such a beautiful moment with the lovely actor who played the robber [PJ Sosko].
She’s just such a talent. I learned so much from just being on set with her. And then on top of that, we’ve been able to create such a wonderful bond offset, which has been very lovely.
So Delilah was shopping with Aunt Vi, and she sees this customer acting strangely, but not necessarily doing anything wrong. She could have ignored him, but she doesn’t. What makes her trust her gut in that moment?
I think it’s been all leading up to this point. We even see in a few episodes before she had just gone out with her mom and had a whole day where they were basically training. The biggest part of that training on that day was paying attention to your surroundings and the people who are around you. And to act on it, if in your gut you feel you must act on it. And in that moment, that’s exactly what she does.
In my mind, when I was doing the scene, I was just imagining what Robyn McCall said to me in the cafe. I feel like it’s pure instinct and it’s gut feeling. That’s what we see Robyn McCall do in so many episodes, where she just trusts that gut. That has now translated to her own daughter.
Talking about trusting your gut, later in the episode, Delilah makes a bold and pretty risky decision to intervene between the gunmen and the police. What was going through her mind as she did that? That could have gone in a very different direction, potentially.
Completely. I think you can see there are moments with the robber Drake and Aunt Vi, that that’s what Delilah, in her head, was hoping it would get to. I think she was hoping it would get to the point where they could have a conversation and find some type of middle ground to calm him down. And so any time that Delilah intervenes, I was viewing it as a way for her trying to calm down this man and find a way to control the situation. Which in past seasons, especially in season 1 and some of season 2, that’s been a struggle for her to take agency.
I think that is her finding a way to control the narrative. And even if it wasn’t the smartest decision, she’s figuring it out. And she has Aunt Vi there to kind of be someone she can look to as inspiration if she’s ever in that situation again.
Laya DeLeon Hayes on her hopes for Delilah in ‘The Equalizer’ Season 4
Your character has gone through a lot of difficult and traumatic experiences over the course of the show. This one plays out a little differently. How is that going to affect her confidence and the way she sees herself heading into season 4?
Right. She’s had a lot of traumatic experiences. If you compare this episode to the season finale of season 2, in that being someone that she was close with, someone who was her friend, these are both very big, impactful things that have happened to her. And I think at this point she’s trying to figure out a way to, again, control it and in her mind, think before she does anything, as opposed to simply just react. And if she’s going to react as she does, that it’s the right thing to do and it’s something that she completely feels in the moment.
I think it’s going to be different than how it was before. You could see, even with Jason’s death in the first season, she went to therapy and PTSD was a big part of her life. And because she’s growing up and finding a way to, again, control her narrative, I think it’ll inspire her to find ways to calm down the situation or to take the situation into her own hands to handle it. As opposed to in the first seasons of it being something that she reacted to and something that was very personal to her. I think it’ll feel more like a job or a challenge, like it is for her mom.
Assuming that everything turns out OK with Robyn, how will she react once she hears what happened to Delilah and Vi?
You’re going to have to watch. That will be in the next season. But I think it’s going to be really insightful for McCall because she kind of has her own thing going a lot of the time. And me and Aunt Vi, we kind of bond as a team and are trying to figure out this new life and these new challenges together. So I think she’ll be hopefully proud of us and mostly relieved that nothing horrible happened. I think that’ll be the mom instinct in her to be like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’
Robyn is at that point where Delilah is growing up and she’s going to have to start to let go and let her be her own person and make these decisions. And I think that’s really hard for any parent and probably doubly hard for McCall.
Exactly. I feel the exact same way. And that makes me excited for what people will see in season 4, just how this all trickles down. Because Delilah is getting ready for college. She’s just maturing in many ways, and McCall and Aunt Vi are going to have to find a way to balance that feeling of, yes, this is still their child and someone that they obviously love and adore. But how do we let her spread her wings and fly?
Delilah has been training this season and perhaps moving on this path to becoming a young equalizer. Do you think she’s ultimately going to follow in her mom’s footsteps or is she going to go in a different direction? Or will that be a point of tension for her as she tries to decide what her life will look like?
Yeah, I think this is the first time she’s felt she’s had some type of purpose. She completely loves helping people and cares a lot about others. So I think this will be a nice way of finding what she ultimately wants to do as a career. Or perhaps just what she wants to major in college.
I hope it’s that for her and they can find a way without making it too much like McCall’s storyline. I hope she has her life outside of that, but still finds a way to help people the way in which her mom does.
The episode ends on a cliffhanger for Robyn, Dante Harry, and Mel. Any speculation on how they get out of that situation or what happens after that?
I can definitely say it’s going to be intense, very intense. People are going to be watching intently. Even when I was reading the script, I was fully focused on what was going to happen next. So I’ll say for that, it’s just going to be a rollercoaster of emotions.
And then throughout season 4, for my character specifically, it’s going to be more of her just maturing. At least in that first episode, it’ll be more maturing, a lot of her coming into her own. And it’s interesting we mentioned college and career paths because it seems like that’s something that’s going to be heavy on Delilah’s mind moving forward.
Is there anything else you want to see for your character in Season 4?
I want to see her go to prom, a whole prom episode. I think that would be so much fun. And who knows, we could do some punching and kicking in the prom episode. Outside of that, I hope she really expands more in her training. I would love to see more of this Aunt Vi and Delilah team up. I think it would be a lot of fun to play.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Equalizer Season 3 finale is now streaming on Paramount+.
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