The cast of The Walking Dead got to spend some time talking about what’s in store for their characters in The Walking Dead season 6. On hand were Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs, Lennie James, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Sonequa Martin-Green and Michael Cudlitz, along with producers Scott Gimple, Greg Nicotero, David Alpert, and Gale Anne Hurd. Here are some of the things brought up during the conversation.
On Alexandria
Gale Anne Hurd:
“Ignorance is deadly. Each of our group who have come into Alexandria has a different feeling and approach to how to gauge that. Carol has infiltrated from the inside, not posing as a threat, just (to see) how dangerous are these people because of their ignorance, while Rick says to just accept that ‘we know what we’re doing’ and everyone else falls within the continuum of those characters.”
Steven Yeun:
“Each character takes their own cues. There is Rick’s group. We saw that last year when we entered Alexandria. They found people within walls that were completely weakened and who had no idea what the world was like. Last season we were trying to fortify some semblance of a life there. That includes safety.”
On new threats
Steven Yeun:
“Ultimately, it’s the wild west, it’s chaos as the real threat. There are no rules anymore, there are limited resources and things are up for grabs. If someone chooses that there is no society because the reset button has been pushed, then how do you deal with that when someone says, ‘I want humanity, I want it to live within these walls.’ There’s so many things at play all at the same time, you’ll get to see how each character how they deal with those lines and how those lines blur and how black and white those lines are this season.”
On Morgan’s return
Danai Gurira
“Who is he at this point? The guy she remembers was quite happy to stay where he was and ‘clear’ and create booby traps all day and night and not join people who wanted to embrace him.”
Lennie James
“There’s a big question to answer about Morgan both for the show and for me playing of him. There’s a couple of dots to be joined that we haven’t quite got to yet that we’re exploring with. The thing that is exciting me at the moment, sometimes the most incendiary thing you can do is take a position of peace. Morgan is on one level is to stir things up by trying to take a passive position. That’s going to fly in the face of a few people’s ideas of how you survive in this present world. He’s going to offer possibly an alternative that isn’t going to land how he expects it to land.
One of the things that’s brilliant about this show is that all the characters are the sum of their experience. As viewers or fans of the show, you’ve been a party to that experience. There’s very few shows or storytelling out there at the moment that are done where you see characters developed in that particular way. I don’t know about Morgan yet because I’m not finished playing him.”
On the kiss between Rick and Jessie
Scott Gimple:
“They have done things for each other that are familial. The way they spoke for each other in last season’s finale, it was to represent how far they have come for each other. They met on opposite sides of the fence with her covered in zombie guts and holding powdered baby formula. She seemed crazy and he was not doing too well himself. Where that goes, who knows? I think there’s something to be said about those two characters’ journey with each other right now.”
Danai Gurira:
“I am thankful that people want Michonne wants to get some. There’s a friendship there, a palpable true friendship that I treasure about Michonne’s connection with Rick. He really was the one who challenged her to step out of who she was being and what she was becoming after that fight with the Governor. She was becoming something quite ugly.”
Andrew Lincoln:
“There’s a kind of jokiness, a gallows humor that they have which is a bit palpable. They’re both warriors, and she’s one of the few characters who can take the piss out of Rick. She also has a great point of context. She’s the arched eyebrow, the smartass, and I love playing those scenes as well.”
Norman Reedus:
“It’s fascinating how people want to put people together, couples and ‘ships, ‘ship wars, and the levels of hostility they throw at each other. What if it was just a one-night stand, what if it was a menage-a-trois? Would the world explode? It’s mind-blowing that that’s such a thing, and I do it with myself, but it’s usually me with everyone. [Laughs]”
On Carol
Melissa McBride:
“I think they’re both equal sides of the same coin, equally dangerous. Each one is necessary, they’re both who she is, and each one is aware of the other, it’s beautiful and complicated, but so simple. It’s a tool, the mask is one of her weapons, one of her weapons is adaptability. She’s multi-tasking. She’s got to carry that cover a little bit, and she’s still trying to find the vulnerabilities are. She’s the eyeballs for Rick.”
Andrew Lincoln:
“She’s the puppeteer, I think.”
On Rick
Andrew Lincoln:
“I think people are quite concerned about Rick, the Alexandrians. I don’t know necessarily if he wants control. I don’t think that’s his modus operandi necessarily, but he’s in a place where he’s not willing to compromise. He does something where his leadership is questioned severely this first half of the season.”
“If we had walked into the community, were taken in, and they had their sh-t together, he would just say, ‘Look, I will be the chief of police. I’ll be the general.’ He’d be more than happy with that. I think that very much a theme within this season is them and us. I don’t want to speak for Carol, but there are certain people that are positioning themselves as us, and they will always remain there. That’s going to cause conflict within the community and maybe within the survivors, the family themselves.”
Read more about The Walkikng Dead sesaon 6 at Blastr