A server issue has made Coax go wonky and for some reason this specific interview got hit worst of all, with only the questions showing up after being up (and readable) for a few hours. So, I'm reposting here until we can fix Coax again. Enjoy!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a phone interview I conducted yesterday with the star of AMC’s hit zombie show THE WALKING DEAD, Mr. Andrew Lincoln.
For those eagle-eyed constant readers, you’ll remember that I’ve been a vocal (probably annoyingly so) fan of Robert Kirkman’s comic for years and was able to give you one of the earliest glimpses of the Frank Darabont-led TV adaptation of the material. It’s still a good read, especially considering how they didn’t include the tail end of the sequence I saw shot… You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The only thing I got wrong was that Rick had seen zombies before he shoots the little girl zombie in the head.
Anyway, on that visit I sat down for an informal, not-recorded chat with Andrew Lincoln that is brought up in the below interview.
I wish I had more time, the final phoner clocking in at just around 12 minutes, which is just about enough time to get comfortable, but not really dig my teeth in to a solid conversation, but you take what you can get.
Before I hand it over to the interview, I wanted to make mention of the writer’s room firing that everybody is all hot about and tell you why I didn’t bring it up here. First of all, Lincoln is an actor, not a suit or show-runner. If I was interviewing Darabont I’d probably have made mention of it, but even then it wouldn’t have been pressing in my mind.
Don’t get me wrong. It must suck if you were in that writer’s room and I feel bad for those guys… But for fans to get all in a tizzy about it is kind of ridiculous. The writer’s room were responsible for only two episodes in the first season. This isn’t Darabont and Robert Kirkman leaving the show. I think it can only be a good thing to hire freelance writers and have Kirkman and Darabont essentially act as the writer’s room and Gods of the series.
All that out of the way, here’s the interview. Lincoln drops a little info about Sunday’s season finale that might be spoilerish and we also talk about the hell that Rick Grimes might be facing in the future if the series sticks any near the comic trajectory, so spoiler warning if you a show fan that hasn’t read the comics yet!
Enjoy!
Quint: How are you doing, sir?
Andrew Lincoln: I’m very well. How are you?
Quint: I’m doing fantastic. I don’t know if you will remember, but we met on the set. I was one of the first people on there. I was there on the day you shot the little girl.
Andrew Lincoln: Yes, I do remember! Yes, absolutely. It’s lovely to speak to you.
Quint: Yeah, it’s awesome sitting back as a fan watching having seen the hard work that you guys put into it and knowing how much passion Frank (Darabont) has for it and all of that going into and not only seeing it turn out so well, but also seeing the reaction and how popular it’s become.
Andrew Lincoln: You and me both, my friend. It’s been an incredible journey so far. I mean the filming of it was one of the most satisfying and exciting jobs of my life and this is just wild. The way it’s been received is beyond our wildest dreams, really; it’s fantastic.
Quint: Well it’s great because sometimes you can have the best premise and the best creative team and everything can come together and there’s no audience for it.
Andrew Lincoln: That is so true. That is absolutely true and you never can quite gauge a temperature for something, no matter how much fun and how good you think it is and the scriptwriting… as you say sometimes it can just miss the boat, but this time it seems to have really caught fire.
Quint: I remember when we talked at the end of that day, sitting in your trailer…
Andrew Lincoln: You said a great thing to me, which really stayed and it was very important for the rest of the shoot. I asked you… I said, “Why do you love this story so much and why do you think the hand being chopped off was so important?” You said, “Because it means that no one is safe.” It was one of the crucial parts about why it had such longevity, I think, for you and I love that. I think that that’s hopefully what we have tried to capture, particularly with the camp attack and all of those kinds of things that have happened.
Quint: The moment that I knew that you were right for the character is when we were talking about Rick as kind of a tortured soul and how this isn’t a guy finding his calling, this is a guy trying to do his best and ultimately always something is going wrong. No matter how many successes he has, he always has losses and it takes something from him each and every time.
Andrew Lincoln: That’s it! Everything costs him, which was absolutely vital I think… even more so with the killing of the walkers and things like that. It was very pertinent that you were there on the day with my first zombie kill. [Laughs] I mean that was my first, my inaugural kill you know and you kind of go… It is… It’s a horrific moment and there is always and always should be that recognition that it costs these characters and it irrevocably changes them.
Quint: And I love just the way the zombies have been presented, where they themselves are kind of tortured beings. One of my favorite moments from the pilot episode was how Frank kind of crosscuts between Morgan and Rick…
Andrew Lincoln: Yes, the execution of the woman… the crawler…
Quint: Yeah, where he felt like Rick had to go out of his way to put her out of her misery and I kind of love that in that one way where Morgan can’t pull the trigger on his wife and even though it’s not him holding a gun to his wife’s head, you still see that Rick is the one who would be able to make that call and go into those dark areas.
Andrew Lincoln: Yeah, I think it’s true. My brother in particular, who I value his judgment and he’s a huge comic book guy, he loves the comic books, he said he found that extremely profound. He said it was astonishing and very very moving. It’s almost like its stealth (storytelling). It feels like we have gone into people’s front rooms under the guise… I said the other day it’s like a Trojan Horse with a big old zombie and then we come inside and we sort of open people up and throw all of this emotion around in there and it seems to be moving people as well. We go in the guise of a zombie survival horror and actually what it is is a very human drama.
Quint: Absolutely, that’s what I’ve loved about Robert Kirkman’s book, but that’s what I love about horror as a genre itself. The best use of the genre is always used as a sugary pill. If you look at Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, that was all race relations as the underscore of that whole thing. When used right it can be a way to preach without preaching, you know?
Andrew Lincoln: Yeah, absolutely. I think all good art aspires to that as well.
Quint: Let’s talk a little bit about the core group because last time I had spoken with you the group hadn’t really formed yet, but now on the show the core group has and that’s kind of where we are.
Andrew Lincoln: It’s a pretty cool group of actors, don’t you think?
Quint: Oh man, I love Jeff DeMunn. I think his Dale is so perfect.
Andrew Lincoln: Isn’t it awesome? He’s just a wonderful actor full stop. So many of the characters… It was so lovely, the first time I shot, when I arrived at camp and we did it chronologically with the union and then the campfire scene, and I looked around and we were shooting it at night obviously and you know I just started hearing everybody talking and they had already established the camp hierarchy and it was wild. It was just wild to hear the voices and I just thought, “This is great.” Everywhere I looked people were putting in these extraordinary performances.
Quint: Have you worked with them individually or as a group? How is that dynamic working for you guys?
Andrew Lincoln: It’s very communal, it’s very open. It’s funny because it’s almost as if we are living it. The practicalities of shooting it are very open plan and also it’s just brutal filming, exposed filming, everything is very public and very raw and it’s great. It’s difficult, it’s powerful, and I’ve never been… When everybody cranks into a scene… Like for example when we get eth countdown happening in episode six and the panic starts to rise and everybody is reacting in their own individual perfectly pitched way, it’s really exciting being on set; it feels like a very tight and committed ensemble group. It doesn’t feel an isolated experience at all and that really just makes it more real and helps everybody.
Quint: And then I’m sure it’s also got to help you in the fact that you guys are forced to shoot chronologically in that as you get to know these people not only as people, but as characters also.
Andrew Lincoln: Yeah, it’s true. It’s a very interesting way of sort of feeling your way into a group. I mean particularly Rick; he comes in as an outsider and sort of is deferred to by Shane and instantly gets this status, but then he messes up and he comes back and then there’s a divisiveness in the group. It’s really the changeable nature of a group of people, a group of misfits that wouldn’t necessarily hang out together, but are thrown together on this life raft as it were. That’s the fascinating thing as an actor and playing these characters in this very tense environment where it changes scene to scene.
One person can be a hero one minute and make a decision as you say that costs lives and that’s exactly what happens to Rick in the show and it costs him and he loses the confidence of his best friend and then even his wife is not 100% convinced with the call that he’s making.
Quint: That’s the beauty of the material and what I love seeing adapted so well, especially in the Shane/Rick/Lori love triangle. What I’m really loving is that you kind of hate Sarah Wayne Callie’s character (Lori) at the end of the first episode and you kind of hate her even more in the second episode, but then she turns around. In the third you are all of a sudden on her side. It’s the same thing with Shane; you kind of hate him for what he’s doing, but then he beats the hell out of that wife-beater and suddenly you are on his side and that’s…
Andrew Lincoln: I think you are absolutely right. The beauty of the show is that you have this moral dilemma constantly that seesaws in all of these characters. They are all flawed characters. They are all in an extraordinary situation which has no right answer or right way to behave. The exciting, it’s like going back to medieval times, everything’s so public. Every decision made is a life threatening decision, so everything is public and played out publicly and that’s difficult live under and people react better than other people you know and every intimate moment is so priceless and stolen. It’s very difficult to get privacy.
Quint: Let’s look ahead to the next season. You are looking at more than double the episodes of the first season, aren’t you? Are you prepared for that?
Andrew Lincoln: I’m getting my sleep in now, I’ll tell you that much and all of us are probably going to get to Atlanta early just to acclimate! I know how hard it was just doing six, just because it’s not a studio set. You know as well as everybody else who knows the graphic novel, it’s outdoors, man. [Laughs]
Quint: And it gets brutal. This is a very rocky ride for our group and I kind of noticed maybe a little foreshadowing with the Merle’s lopped off hand and all of that stuff.
Andrew Lincoln: Yeah it does seem (that way). I keep bumping into (Michael) Rooker at all of these kind of parties and conventions and it’s like I keep looking at him and going “It’s not good for me, man… I don’t see a bright future for me and you.” [Laughs]
Quint: All of my WALKING DEAD fan friends and I keep talking about that. We’re going “Oh man, Merle’s going to end up with the Governor. That’s where they are going to find him…”
Andrew Lincoln: [Laughs] That’s what we’ve got; we’ve got a year of speculation, basically.
Quint: That’s all good, man. Well I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and congratulations on the success. You guys have earned it.
Andrew Lincoln: Thank you so much and also maybe you’ll do a set visit next year sometime?
Quint: I’d love to. I keep trying to talk them into letting me be a zombie, so maybe you’ll get to put a bullet in my head next year, God willing.
Andrew Lincoln: I would love it. You know that was happening towards the end of the shoot. People were coming up to me and just going “Can I have your bullet?” I was giving bullets out, it was fantastic.
Quint: That’s awesome.
Andrew Lincoln: Well look, a real pleasure to speak to you again and take it easy. We’ll speak next year, hopefully.
Quint: Yeah, absolutely man. Thanks.
Andrew Lincoln: Thank you.
Quint: Alright, bye.
It was a pleasure chatting with Mr. Lincoln and I hope to get more chances to in the future. The man has one of the most fascinating characters on TV if the put him through the ringer like they do in the books. And he’s a nice fellow to boot.
Now where to I start my “Kill me in Walking Dead Season 2” campaign?
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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