Ashley Zukerman plays Daniel in the dystopian world of Silo, a streaming TV series on Apple TV that recently finished the arc of its third season, hinting at a high-stakes, final fourth chapter. With Rebecca Ferguson in the lead as Juliette Nichols, Silo stands as one of Apple TV’s flagship titles and introduced a new version of Daniel in the tenth and final episode of season three. A radical transformation deemed necessary for the plot and promptly tackled by the person involved. In a recent interview, Ashley Zukerman explained why Daniel was turned into a markedly different and dangerous person. Warning: the following references events from the finale of season three, so please continue only after you’ve completed watching to avoid spoilers.
Silo 3, Ashley Zukerman explains the transformation of Daniel into Troy and what scares him most about this version
Daniel has shown himself to be a man of principle, steadfast in his values, and for that reason he rejected Per Stensen’s offer to participate in the construction of the Silo. This moment occurred centuries before the present-day events led by Juliette Nichols, and yet Daniel is still alive as seen in the tenth episode of the third season. Alive, but completely changed. Even his name, Troy, is different, signaling a ruthless, calculating, and detached persona—far from the moral code of his sister Charlotte, who has herself become Susan.
It’s revealed that Daniel, dragged into the Silo 1 centuries prior against his will, was transformed into Troy, a wakeful specialist who is occasionally roused from cryogenic sleep to resolve problems affecting the other Silos. This version of Daniel is, besides being ruthless and at times robotic, devoid of any memory of his former life, save for the vague sense of having met an important woman. He doesn’t know that that woman is Helen, who was denied a future identical to his own long ago. But unlike Daniel, who was moved to the Silo 1 equipped with cryogenic chambers, Helen ended up alone in Silo 18, a facility not known for possessing such technology. Centuries later, Daniel remains alive, but it is difficult to say the same about Helen.
In an interview with TV Fanatic, Ashley Zukerman confronted the radical change of his character: “The forty years of life that shaped the Daniel we knew gave him a particular sense of life, a certain humanity. And all of that was ripped away. It was replaced by this mission. His story has been entirely supplanted by a mission.” Reflecting on what happened to Silo 17 and the brutal order issued by Troy, Zukerman admitted that, beneath it all, it can still be attributed to Daniel: “I think it’s much more interesting to say that it was Daniel who did it. In a sense, it’s Daniel’s doing. You know, Susan, Charlotte couldn’t do it, she couldn’t, but Daniel could. I think there must be something inside him that drives him to act.” Regarding Troy, this version of Daniel—cold and unflinching—he added: “I think the scariest aspect of Troy is his clarity, the fact that he doesn’t seem shaken by what he’s doing. I think Daniel could have done something similar, but it would have cost him dearly. For Troy, there was no cost. And I think that’s precisely what makes it so terrifying.”
Daniel, an engineer and a political mind, has demonstrated an ability to devise effective, sometimes unconventional solutions, keeping his composure under pressure—qualities that proved useful in the Silo 1, even centuries later. Yet the far-off memory of Helen represents that grain of humanity buried within him, and once the name of the woman in his memories is uncovered, something within shifts. Zukerman analyzed why, in Helen’s case, a single name was enough to destabilize him, especially when his sister Charlotte appeared before him in person. “Why is it Helen that does it? Not Charlotte. She’s the spark that wakes him up. And I think he saw life again for the first time, and found hope again. And I think she has woven herself into his DNA in a way that could not be erased.” The trailer for season four hints that, after that revelation, Troy will be more driven to uncover the truth and draw closer to Juliette Nichols.
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