Xavier Clyde and Nico Tortorella Talk 'Imperfect' and 'Unconditional' Relationship in Apple TV+ Drama 'City on Fire' (Exclusive)

Xavier Clyde and Nico Tortorella Talk 'Imperfect' and 'Unconditional' Relationship in Apple TV+ Drama 'City on Fire' (Exclusive),Apple TV+'s new drama series City on Fire is a captivating story about the lives of several people and how they intertwine around a young woman who is shot one night in Central Park. Two of the people involved are Mercer and William, played by Xavier Clyde and Nico Tortorella, respectively. The [...]

Xavier Clyde and Nico Tortorella Talk ‘Imperfect’ and ‘Unconditional’ Relationship in Apple TV+ Drama ‘City on Fire’ (Exclusive)

Apple TV+’s new drama series City on Fire is a captivating story about the lives of several people and how they intertwine around a young woman who is shot one night in Central Park. Two of the people involved are Mercer and William, played by Xavier Clyde and Nico Tortorella, respectively. The pair are a seemingly mismatched couple with an “imperfect” relationship, but there is clearly an “unconventional” loyalty between them.

PopCulture.com recently spoke with the two actors, and they offered their perspectives on the tortured romance between Mercer and Will, with Clyde offering his thoughts on how his character perceives their love. “It’s one of those things where you fall in love with someone and… it’s that first love,” he said, “Moving to this city where he’s following everything that he envisioned for himself, his dreams of being that writer in New York City, having the romantic aspect of it as well. There’s just a lot of the rose-colored vision that he has for himself and how life is going to be in New York.”

Clyde continued, “So, with William, he starts to realize that he’s this imperfect human being, but he finds the beauty and that. He wants to find the beauty, the light in this redemptive tale of fixing this person. I think wanting to do that, that loyalty… to a fault, no matter the lows that William brings us through.”

He then added, “Or just even with my own pain as well, in not being fully accepting of… Mercer, not accepting his identity as much. He sees so much in William that he also wants to be. So, there’s this constant, constant pull towards this person that he just can’t seem to shake.”

Tortorella then offered, “In so many ways, it’s such this symbiotic relationship. They are the yin and the yang to each other. Mercer must love at some point, just like to be constantly tortured in his life. There’s definitely some masochism in there. I think what Xavier was saying, that William represents something that Mercer looks to be and wants to emulate, I think that there is something in Mercer that William wishes he had. William is just like a jaded New Yorker, drug-addicted, narcissistic, artist. Every artist wishes that they could open their eyes a little bit wider and see things from a new perspective.”

The former Younger star continued, “Mercer is those new eyes in the city that William can see through. The loyalty there is just, it’s unconditional. There’s real love there, I think that probably at the beginning of this relationship, William thought it was like, ‘This was going to be a fun new flavor of the week type of thing.’ But no, he quite literally saw the world anew again through Mercer’s eyes. Once that veil is lifted, you can’t bring it back down.

The first four episodes of City on Fire are now streaming on Apple TV+, with new episodes debuting on Fridays.

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