'Deadly Class' Star Talks Navigating the Most Dangerous Love Triangle Ever

Navigating love triangles is a real challenge even for people with a lot of dating experience, but Syfy’s new series Deadly Class explores what that’s like for a teenage virgin that’s suddenly thrust into an academy for would-be assassins. They say hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn, but what if that woman is literally trained to kill?

During a set visit in November 2018, Deadly Class star Benjamin Wadsworth (Marcus Lopez on the show), tells Inverse what it’s like acting out what may be the deadliest love triangle in comic book history.

“You’re trying to survive the school, but you should probably try to survive not getting killed by your girlfriends,” he says. With an uneasy laugh, Wadsworth explains the challenges of being caught between “the two most badass chicks ever” in what just might be the most literally painful love triangle of all time.

"You’re trying to survive the school, but you should probably try to survive not getting killed by your girlfriends.

It doesn’t help that the two women Marcus gets entangled with are best friends: Saya, leader of the Kuroki Syndicate clique at King’s Dominion, and Maria, who’s currently dating the lead of the Soto Vatos gang named Chico. Saya’s rarely seen without her katana, a family heirloom, while Maria wields war fans with razor sharp blades.

Meanwhile, as the series begins, Marcus just has a notebook full of sketches and zero combat training.

Like most students at the school, Saya and Maria are connected to powerful criminal organizations. Crime lords from all around the world send their kids to King’s Dominion to become assassins, but no matter how badass any of them are, they’re still just teenagers with their own thoughts and feelings trying to find their place in the world.

Saya shows up early in the story on a motorcycle, wielding a katana to rescue Marcus from the cops. That first impression means a lot to him.

“Marcus is insanely infatuated with Saya because she has this mystery,” Wadsworth says. “She’s the top of the school and she’s the one who brought him there, and took him off the ledge.”

That’s a literal edge, by the way. In a scene from the series premiere Marcus contemplates leaping to his death rather than attending a school for assassins, but Saya convinces him to stay with a kiss.

Was that just an assignment from Master Lin, the leader of the school? Or does she really harbor burgeoning feelings? Saya says it was all part of her assignment to retrieve Marcus, but the lead actor isn’t so convinced.

“She’s acting like he’s a problem and that she doesn’t care about him,” Wadsworth says, “but I think he knows that she secretly does.”

Then again, his character may not be the best judge when it comes to this kind of thing.

“Marcus has never been in a relationship,” Wadsworth says. “I don’t think he’s ever kissed a girl, at this point, and he’s probably a virgin. He’s getting so much attention all of a sudden, and it’s tough because he’s a young kid who doesn’t really know a lot about women.”

A lot of the attention Marcus gets at King’s Dominion, however, comes from Maria.

“He’s getting so much attention, especially from Maria,” Wadsworth says. “There’s a lot of physical attraction between the two of them.”

They meet in a martial arts class, and Maria introduces herself after pinning him to the ground with a move that involves wrapping her legs around his head. Maria is immediately flirtatious with Marcus, and her bloodthirsty boyfriend Chico only serves to make the entire situation that much more complicated.

“I think he could tell that pursuing the two of them might get him into trouble,” Wadsworth says.

But it seems likely that it won’t stop Marcus on Deadly Class — especially if the show continues to follow the comics story. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Deadly Class airs Wednesday nights on Syfy at 10 p.m. Eastern.