“This has been a long time coming,” teased Andrew Lincoln about AMC’s The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Andrew reprises his role of Rick Grimes in the new spin-off series from The Walking Dead Universe, one that reunites him with another fan-favorite character, Michonne. “This is a love story. This is essentially the DNA of the original episode, was a man in search of his family, and that DNA is very much in this story.” In Andrew’s opinion, this iteration wouldn’t have happened without the support of his costar and fellow executive producer, Danai Gurira. “Danai was beating the drum for the love story in everything we could squeeze out of every scene,” Andrew revealed during the TCA Winter Press Tour. “The episode that she wrote was an astonishing feat, to be producing, writing, and starring in her own episode. She did a formidable job, and it was beautiful.”
(AMC)
“At the end of the mothership series, she'd gone through some stuff in [Rick’s] absence that had shifted her dealing with people who came into her space,” Danai Gurira explained about Michonne’s past and where we find her character at the start of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. “I think that there's a ride that people are going to get to take, and I really, really want them to take that ride. Everything and everyone, all our amazing support cast, everyone just ups the ante of the journey that they take, and they up the ante of these characters in a way that's very unexpected. No one's going to see them coming.”
Among the fresh, new faces in the series is an actor Danai Gurira previously shared the stage with, “Getting to work with her on Richard III, every performance, every show, we would fist bump under the stage after a scene that we did,” shared Matthew August Jeffers, who plays Nat on the series. During the Shakespeare in the Park production, Matthew had some heartbreak when he didn’t land a part in a series he was hoping to get, receiving encouragement from Danai, who told him she could feel something big for him on the horizon. “I thought that she was just being supportive… I had no idea that in a couple of months’ time, I would get a call from my agent inviting me to audition for this world, a world that I grew up admiring and loving. To be able to step into that world and honor that… it literally for me is a dream come true.”
“I binged the show in preparation for the role,” revealed Lesley-Ann Brandt, who plays a character named Pearl. “The things I loved about the mothership series were those little human stories and those vulnerable moments and the relationships. I was rooting for [Rick and Michonne] when they got together. So, that informed me a lot in terms of the relationship that our two characters have and what makes us similar or what makes us different or why he is the way he is and why there's something about Michonne that I maybe don't necessarily trust in the beginning when they meet. Because I know there's something special about her. I don’t know that you can come into this epic love story now… I do think that there's a lot about them that you learn in that mothership series. This is sort of like the climax of their love in a way.”
Also new to The Walking Dead universe is TV legend Terry O’Quinn, who takes on a somewhat villainous persona as Beale. “I seem to fall into that category on occasion, and I enjoy it,” the Lost actor shared. “The longer you can sort of operate in the dark or on the sides, and the longer you can sustain the audience interest that way before you come out into the sunshine and reveal your real self, and who the character really is, that's all good fun. The only pressure I felt was keeping up with these guys. And I know what kind of a reputation the show has. I understand how special it is to a lot of people.”
There’s probably no one who understands the pressure heading into The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live than
Scott Gimple, showrunner, executive producer, and chief content officer of the entire The Walking Dead franchise. “Even before I was showrunning, when I was a writer/producer on the show, I would have these dreams, these wishes, these things I wanted to do in the story,” Scott revealed about the origins of this spinoff. “I was trying to just build little tiny atoms of kindred souls. I didn’t know if I'd be able to tell that story, that isn't the story that goes in the comic.” Having come to the series as a fan of the source material, Scott had to learn the rewarding possibilities of sending characters down different paths, teasing a possible merging of the shows that remain. “I have laid little breadcrumbs towards that, but you never know exactly when and how because of a variety of reasons… I will just say I'm building those pathways. But there could be all sorts of pivots along the way that change it or just do it in a different manner. I mean, this show in and of itself was like that.”
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres tonight at 9/8c on AMC and streaming on AMC+.