The 100 Season 6 Episode 13 may have just aired, but already fans have questions about what comes next and what the introduction of Hope Diyoza means for Charmaine in the next season. 

The potential after Diyoza went off into the Anomaly is mixed in the concept of time and another dimension, all of which doesn't even begin to touch on who took her hostage. 

One thing is clear though, everyone wants to see Charmaine Diyoza back because it just isn't The 100 without her anymore.  

The incredible Ivana Milicevic took on the role and became an instant favorite, creating a complicated character who became so much more than just the person on the opposing side of the war during The 100 Season 5. 

Charmaine Diyoza became a fun presence on the screen and was the definition of a badass woman who shaped herself and her journey. She has come a long way, but she also has so much farther to go now that she's at the center of the mysterious Anomaly storyline. 

Taking some time out to talk with us, Ivana Milicevic shares her thoughts on where the story goes from here for Diyoza and how the character grew into the person that she is. She also touched on her personal connection to filming that Anomaly scene and how she connected with Diyoza over the last two seasons of the show. 

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How much were you told about Diyoza's journey in Season 6 before you started filming? 

Even if I knew that there would be some sort of Anomaly situation, as Jason is making these things up in his head you are like okay there is going to be an Anomaly but you don't know what that is to form a huge picture in your mind to remember everything.

Although I did know something like that would happen, I didn't know really. If that makes sense at all.

During The 100 Season 6 Episode 13, Hope appears and says that Diyoza is being held by someone. How much, if anything, do you know about this and about Diyoza's story in Season 7?

I do. Of course, I can't say anything, which may or may not be real.

Because clearly, Diyoza's not dead because she gave birth, to some degree or wasn't dead when she thought she was if we thought she was dead. 

We definitely didn't think she was dead, if only because there was no goodbye tweet from Jason Rothenberg. We were all waiting for Diyoza to come back. 

Right. Exactly. So to that degree there's plans but you still never know because things happen in life.

For instance, I'm sure you know by now that there wasn't supposed to be a Hope. I wasn't supposed to be a pregnant actress when I started The 100.

But there you go, all of that story happened because I was pregnant in real life out of the clear blue sky. 

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How did your own pregnancy and motherhood influence your approach to Diyoza's journey with Hope these last two seasons?

It made everything so much richer, and I think everyone agrees. The idea was that Diyoza was just going to be a fully bad person, more like a McCreary. And then when we found out I was pregnant, I told everyone very early on, really earlier than anyone would ever announce such a thing.

They needed to know that this was a huge possibility because I think they were planning on me doing lots and lots of fight scenes and I couldn't so I had to tell them.

Then as time went on, it gave the character such depth. Because everything changes when you are responsible for another human being, and certainly when another human being is growing instead of you.

I know I'm a different person being a mother than I was before that, even though I was a very nurturing and maternal person always. It still changes.

So being pregnant and being an actual mother and having a Hope character to deal with just deepened everything and to me enlightened everything.

Diyoza also had that earlier this season where she was almost preparing for Hope with Octavia. What was it like playing off of Marie Avgeropoulos primarily this season as Diyoza essentially looked after Octavia? 

That was really, really fun. I was really excited that we got to pair off together.

That's a really good connection.

It was great because you're right, Diyoza is preparing for motherhood and here she's got this lost little duckling who reminds her so much of herself that she gets to start practicing. Practicing being a mother figure to. 

Which I think it starts once you get pregnant, so she enjoyed that very much, getting to mother early on. 

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Diyoza did spend most of her time with Gabriel and Octavia, but is there someone you wish Diyoza were paired off with more or who you hope she'll spend more time with next season?

This was so great. I remember the season where Diyoza got banished I was really bummed about it because I was like "Goodbye guys, I miss you all already". 

Before The 100 Season 6 was written, I remember Eliza wanting -  because Jason is the end all be all with the story, we just kind of muse about it.

And Eliza was saying she wanted us to have mother-to-mother stuff because we also thought that Diyoza would have given birth at the beginning of the season. But because of where the time was, Diyoza would still be pregnant to then from the cryo. 

It would have been fun to have some sort of mom club with Clarke and perhaps Abby. But then this is such a good season that it was still better than any ideas I had.

I had this idea, too, that there were a bunch of clones on Sanctum because they had talks of cloning and things like that. I thought there could be a McCreary there, but he is this stoner farmer on this other planet, but again they did such a good job with Sanctum and all of the inhabitants.  

Assuming you don't know the full layout for Season 7, what are some of your theories? Or what did you originally think was in the Anomaly when Diyoza ended up there? 

I know a little bit of the ideas of what they are going to do, which again they are ideas because there are a million ideas before they change their mind and you get what you get at the end of the day.

I can tell you what I was thinking because I remember on my last day after I went to the Anomaly, Jason and I were joking, and I said, "By the way, if this happens I'm not spoiling anything because I already thought of it, and I don't know that this is happening, it is just my own invention."

I said just make sure I have long white hair to my butt if we ever see me again in the Anomaly. I have no idea that that is going to happen, but it is interesting because, clearly, you can see right away that there is some sort of time warp there which I don't even fully understand yet.

Don't know if I ever will, but there is something to do with time that the Anomaly can manipulate, I don't know why or how.

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With the announcement that the next season is the last for the show, where would you like to see Diyoza's story go? Where would you like to see her story end up?

As a human being, I always like everything wrapped up in a pretty happy bow at the end. Which isn't very sexy at all, but there you go. 

But the first thing I would think of is, I would say she has to be changed. My hope is that she's changed by motherhood, that something inside of her in a much simpler way because we didn't see her for six seasons fighting for her people like the original 100 people sent down to earth, it's a different older thing what Diyoza had to do.

And in a way simpler because it is like present Earth that we know today. 

I like the idea of her having become a mother; it is just simple now. It is all about love and that's all she thinks is actually important. It is kind of boring, but it is also what I believe, that all you need is love. 

But also we've had years and years of love is weakness and for this character to be like, and it's not the only character who is all about love, "I'm just here to love my daughter and love people. And hey, you need a mother? I'm here for you".

Which she is just down to mother. 

The theme for The 100 always circles back to doing better, do you think Diyoza has done better on this new planet? 

Yeah! I think so. 

I don't think she thinks she deserves any kind of forgiveness because Jason used to say to me that it is the equivalent of like for good in my mind maybe I blew up a mall that had men, women, and children in it. But not a mall, a mall wouldn't make sense. Something military for the better of something.

But I would have destroyed even kids in the process, which is something that Diyoza would never do after she was pregnant or after she had a baby. More of that "kill a few to save the many" person.

Because Diyoza was never evil, it was for good but you know how that goes. 

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This season Eliza Taylor was given the challenge of playing a new character in Clarke's body. Who would you have liked to play in Diyoza's body for a few episodes?

Because Diyoza is so dry, I would say Madi. Cute little girly Madi. So she goes from being like a teenager to the badass dry warrior that she is. I just feel like that is the biggest difference. 

What was it like getting to film the scene where Diyoza sees that manifestation of Hope, her greatest desire?

Well, I can tell you that it matches what I was using, which is interesting. 

I don't know if you know, but I lost my brother, and his favorite show was The 100. So on the one-year anniversary of his death, I got the offer for The 100. 

And then my other brother said, "You know that's Filip's favorite show, right?". So I had to do it, and this was at the same time that I found out I was pregnant, and everything was happening at once. Incidentally, by the way, today is the anniversary of my brother Filip's death. 

So when I was going into the Anomaly, I was actually picturing my brother Filip was pulling me into it. I know that it is my daughter in the show, but when I was acting it, I was picturing my brother. It gave it a real depth. 

Because at this point my son was already born so the first year I was doing The 100 I was pregnant, I didn't know him yet. So Hope or Phoenix, it didn't matter, right? I was still pregnant with this idea of this person.

So when we were doing that walk into the Anomaly, the richest choice was for me to follow my brother. 

It all comes full circle. 

Isn't that kind of cool though? It all comes full circle that we're having this talk today, the finale episode was last night, all around his anniversary. It's just really interesting the little things that show you that people still exist but in a different form. 

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This season we lost (Zeke) Shaw, and we saw Diyoza face that a little and she even wore his jacket afterward. But we didn't spend too much time there, and I was wondering how you think she processed that?

Like you said we pretty much glossed over it, but Diyoza was very fond of Shaw.

We weren't about to do an episode of mourning Shaw and having the funeral and everything because the show must go on. 

I would have definitely watched that though.

I know, and I would have played it! 

He was probably the first person that she was mothering.

So I think that was almost like - I feel like saying losing a son is too much, it's not quite like she lost a son but definitely more of that kind of relationship than not. 

We have gradually gotten pieces of Diyoza's backstory over the seasons. How has that shaped how you approach Diyoza finding out small details like she is on the same page in history books as Hitler?

Oh, she is devastated by that, that was not her plan. When she was doing the bad things she was doing she is not like, "Yeah, me and Hitler had a lot of the same ideas." 

If anything she thought she was doing the exact opposite of that. So for all that awful stuff that she did, which she knew was awful but thought it was for the greater good, for that to backfire in such a way and for her to end being on the opposite side of the same coin of people like Hitler and Osama Bin Laden would have been a huge blow to everything.

Which is why I think she at the end was like, "I don't think I deserve forgiveness or anything. You are young, you can, and you have time. I would do something with your life instead of feeling sorry for yourself" when she was talking to Octavia. 

But that would have devastated her. Because she turned against America because America turned against her. So everything she vowed to protect it wasn't any more of what she originally signed on for. 

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What do you admire most about Diyoza?

Let's start with the fact that she wasn't flippant about the fact that's where her name ended up in the history books. She was like, "I have miscalculated."

I admire that she fights for what she believes in, but I mostly admire how she softened and how pregnancy/motherhood softened her.

It actually softens you in one way and hardens you in another. 

I don't know if you know, but the worst thing that an attacker could do is attack a woman that has a child with her. Literally. If that woman was alone without a child, the attacker could win. If somebody attacks a woman with a child, some other sixth sense kicks in and some meek little mother can gauge the eyes out of someone.

Crazy things scientifically are proven to happen with a mother. A badass mama bear. It's like magic.

Is there anything Diyoza has taught you?

Everything.

Listen, so much happened in my life at the time that I was doing this show. It's like you said, the full circle. I find out I'm pregnant and I'm supposed to travel the next day to do The 100, I don't know what it's like to be pregnant and all of that was new for me.

So we got to figure that stuff out together. I can't say a character I created taught me something per se, but neither of us knew something, and we learned something along the way. 

Diyoza is such a fan-favorite character, she is so beloved by the fans of the show.

Aww, that is beautiful.

They miss you a lot and really love the character, especially with the way she brings humor to her conversations. Have you enjoyed getting to bring that dry humor to the character to help define her more? 

Yes. So much. I enjoyed that so much. It's really fun to play a woman that is so tired and pregnant, she just can't take any bullcrap right now. And then you believe it when she says it too.

Because she hasn't been going through everything that these other characters have been going through. Jordan, Shannon Kook's character, is new to the world from the old world. 

So Diyoza is like, look I'm a different kind of tired, y'all. I love it so much and I'm so glad that it resonated with fans. I'm so glad that they liked me! It was very fun to see the fans go from, "This Diyoza, I don't like her when she was doing back things to Clarke" to them switching and being into her. 

It just goes to show you how good the writing is. 

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Yana Grebenyuk was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in April 2021.