Fear The Walking Dead – Comic Con 2018

By starrymag | August 4, 2018

By: Brittany Dailey

 

Q) This is more so for the newer cast members Jenna [Elfman], Garret [Dillahunt] and Maggie [Grace]. What’s it like for you guys to join the show and not just the show but sort of “The Walking Dead “franchise itself?

 

Maggie: Like moving into a new neighborhood where everyone brought you a three-tiered cake. It was so warm and friendly and you just wanna… I will say a little shocking when you’ve lost cast members very soon thereafter and you have no idea. But yeah, I would say I couldn’t be more grateful for the cast and crew for welcoming us and the fans too.

 

Garret: Yeah, it was great. It was exciting to be a part of it. It’s not the first show I’ve ever joined mid-process, so that’s not really that unusual. But man, I know this was a big change that went on and a big .. one of the best productions I’ve ever had on a show, I’ll tell you that. I had a blast. It’s a great group of actors to be a part of.

 

Jenna: I’m honored that I was given this opportunity. It’s been a really big learning curve for me, just with the mythology and familiarizing myself with it and understanding it and wanting to honor and do right by the fans who have been so invested for so long. As a newcomer, this specific fan base experience, I wanted to … that was really important to me to make sure I really understood it, so that I was in the same world with them. Artistically it’s just been really stimulating and been a really great adventure. I’m really excited for everyone to see the second half and excited about where it’s going, and it’s just been really pleasurable.

 

Q) Last year the theme was escape and revenge, what do you think the theme will be for this upcoming season?

 

A: I think there’s a few. We talked in the panel a bit about the end of the first half of the season, ended with these characters sitting around the campfire, brought together by circumstances they could not have imagined and could not have envisioned. [Inaudible] So there’s a lot to resolve within themselves, within the group. Questions of who are they to each other, who will they be going forward, how will they care on Madison’s (Kim Dickens) legacy of hope and bring the light into this often dark world. And I think redemption is a really big theme in the background. It’s about making up for the things you’ve done. How do I go about doing that? And that’s something we’ll see everyone wrestle with.

 

Q) Alycia, we’ve been talking about your character for a while now and when we first met Alicia lived in a different world surrounded by a different group of people and so much happened with her, to her, in the last couple of years. So, how do all these changes apply to your character from now on?

 

Alycia: It’s been a really exciting journey for me because this character I think has had one of the major developments out of any characters on the show. We’ve seen her go from a regular teenage girl to a fearless warrior in the apocalypse and somebody who’s been destroyed by it too and lost everyone she knows. We’ve seen…it’s interesting when we talk about earlier how all our characters have become versions of like alternate in the apocalypse. Everyone’s lost someone. Or, I’m sorry, everyone’s lost everyone in their life really, their family. And what’s unique with Alicia is we’ve really seen her from the beginning of that journey right to the end. Her whole story arc has been played out in front of us and if you thread it all together in one kind of journey it’s quite remarkable how much she’s changed. This season in particular is obviously really, really hard, because I lost, you know, all of the Clark’s. I’m the only one left. And that was hard, and it’s been really hard for myself, Colman [Domingo] and obviously Danay [Garcia]. We’ve been a family really involved in each other’s lives personally, but also these characters. What’s great though is that we now get to see Alicia purely as her own character completely. She has no real …she doesn’t have the same ties to her mother and brother, it’s just about her as a woman now and that opens up some new journeys and narratives for her to play out. I’m really, really excited for some of the stuff that’s coming up.

 

Q) For Lennie James, you’ve made no secret of the fact of your love and adoration for the cast and crew of The Walking Dead, so my ask is very tongue in cheek. When you came aboard Fear the Walking Dead, was there some friendly competition in regards to, “Okay, I’m on Fear the Walking Dead now. Now we’re gonna make sure The Walking Dead looks at us like, uh oh.”

 

Scott: Those were Lennie’s words verbatim.

 

Lennie James: Literally my exact words when Scott said, “Let’s do this thing.” I was like, “Yeah, let’s make it better than the other show.” Art. Man up. Let’s get some people together and let’s go over to Atlanta and let’s do them in. No, my kinda thing, I try and do my best wherever I am, and tell the story in the best way we think it should be told. I don’t think there’d be any point in crossover or all of the pomp and circumstance around it if it wasn’t adding something or continuing the great work that’s been done before. If it wasn’t broadening the story, if it was just a gimmick, I’m not interested in a gimmick, it’s gotta be something that works for me and works for everybody else involved in it. And that was the things that most interested me and most concerns me. You know, I’ve said it before, I’m very protective, it’s like real responsibility for Morgan as a character to continue to tell his story in a way that I want to tell the story. If it wasn’t something then I wouldn’t pursue. But if we end up kicking the other guy’s ass…

 

Q) Garret, okay so specifically you’ve played a lot of Southern gentleman, shall we say, in your career. What’s it like getting to lean into the ultimate Texas mythology figure?

 

Garret: Well, it’s been a blast. I can’t say I wasn’t a little nervous about it. You know, a guy walking around in modern day with two guns on his hips and a cowboy hat. I sure loved the first episode. I don’t think I’ve ever had, in a long and winded career, such a great introduction to a series or a universe before. I’m grateful for it. I’m really happy the fans have come along for the ride. It’s a lot of fun.

 

Q) With “The Walking Dead” and the time jump of its own, does that rule out any further crossovers between “Fear the Walking Dead” and “The Walking Dead?”

 

Answer: It does not. Yeah, that’s about all I got to say. I hope that’s enough. But I wouldn’t be expecting it all the time, but things could happen. You never know who might pop up on “Fear the Walking Dead.” And that includes not only “Walking Dead” stuff, but even potentially people from the past of “Fear the Walking Dead.” You remember? I don’t mean to be so deep … You know what that rumoring was very satisfying.

 

Q) For anyone, if you had a super power, what would you do to improve America?

 

Answer: Oh, boy.

 

Lennie: Only if I had super powers?

 

Answer: Automatic voter registration.

 

Danay: If I could instead of the virus and the apocalypse, if we could have a bunch of walkers filled with love. Not walkers like real people but just so much love and it can all spread around the world that would be an amazing virus.

 

Q) Be a love bite.

 

Danay: It would be a love bite. If you run away from that, you have a problem.

 

Q) Scott, is the natural disaster that’s coming up for this season, was that originally going to be discussed about on the original show?

 

Scott: You know what, we had talked … things had bounced around in that area on the original show, but it was never what we wound up talking about. And I think once we talked about some of the crazy imagery involved … “Fear the Walking Dead” is a show that is incredibly distinct on its own and this half season really establishes that it has such a, oh boy, a total flexibility. It has a total elasticity. There are things that happen, episode ten that is so dark, it’s so emotional and it’s so heartfelt and then as Lennie just said within an episode we will see Morgan on a toilet. I’m just saying it runs a gambit.

 

Q) Can I just say Morgan on a toilet…

 

Scott: Nobody put him in a box.

 

Answer: I think in the back half of the season we are excited to really push the boundaries and see the different kinds of episodes we could do and week from week tonally the show varies quite a bit. We tell lots of different kinds of stories. And the storm and the aftermath is kind of a backdrop for all of that. And kind of the origin of the storm for us was, you know we’ve had viewing adversaries in the front half and we really wanted to do something that felt different and a hurricane would change the landscape in ways that everyone thought they figured out how to survive in the zombie apocalypse now has to kind of relearn everything.

 

Answer: I wanna say Jeffery Dean Morgan provides the voice of the hurricane. Sort of a crossover there.

 

Q) I am particularly fond of Al’s tapes as a narrative device. I wanted to know if we’d be exploring any of the rest of those and if that is too much, if there will be any kinds of devices like that in the back half?

 

Answer: I can tell you, you will definitely be exploring more with those tapes and why they mean so much to Al in a couple of different circumstances. She’s hinted at why they mean so much to her, what’s on them, but we’re gonna pull back a whole other layer across a couple episodes.

 

Q) Michael, you’re the other crossover on the panel here, so I’m just curious you’re perspective on directing these two different casts.

 

Michael: All shows are very unique. Being around since the very beginning of everything and going through all of the losses that I’ve gone through and all the amazing moments of creating and just watching shows kind of uniquely go through their process of evolving this was a different and unique kind of story for me, because we were trying to sort of reinvent a show and take it to another place. Make it a giant time jump. And there were a lot of things that were offered that I could not say no to, obviously it’s easy going with someone else like Lennie. So, that made it great. But, to me, everybody also knowing from the very beginning what they were gonna go through…because I’ve been through it a lot with the loss of their family and have to adopt somebody new like me into their family. And then just starting to create together. This has been probably the greatest year of my life and one of the greatest experiences that I’ve ever had. I know that everyone has their own opinion when you change shows and take people away from them, we live it and have to experience and create it. I’ll tell you what, what we’ve done together and what we’ve created, and the trust that we now work under that’s second to none. So long story long, this has been great for me to crossover and it is a different show. Still in the apocalypse and around the apocalypse.

 

Q) Did you teach Colman anything when he got behind the camera?

 

Michael: No, he was ready. He just needed the love. But Colman, he’s a creator he’s a filmmaker. And that’s one thing, everyone has a title within filmmaking, showrunners and executive producers and writers. The highest you can ever get is filmmaker, and we all create filmmakers and there are so many filmmakers here. So many.

 

Q) This question is actually for the Season One people. Mr. Domingo included because he survives in season one. Is there any kind of hesitation when new actors come on the show and getting to know them? You know, you have this great new talent on the show. Do you worry as a person or an actor like should I get to close to them because they might die off or do you kill someone’s entire family or is there any kind of fear of that?

 

Colman: I don’t think so. I think we know that’s the nature of the show. I think a lot of times, I don’t know if I’m because I’m just dealing with on a day to day basis, a lot of times I don’t know what a person is, I don’t know how long their gonna last. Are you a regular? We have an actor, a few actors that are with us now, and they’re with us til episode 16, so I’m just assuming, but I could be wrong. You get into it and you go full hearted with everyone, that’s just the nature of it. You have to embrace them and welcome them aboard and really try to create new traditions with them and become a family, whether it’s one episode or … I mean, I’ve made so many friends. Like Kevin Zegers, we basically had maybe one or two scenes together, and now he’s one of my dearest friends. You go in for the journey. I think that’s the nature of the people who all come in and every actor who comes on as well. You come in because you’re like, that’s what we’re doing basically. From our crew and our cast and our executives, AMC basically we’re trying to create a really large family and that’s it. You come in with an open heart.

 

Alycia: Yeah you can’t be half hearted about it really. To do it well, I think. If you wanna do a really great job then this bleeds so much into our daily life, because we’re around each other 24/7 basically, we spend sometimes more time with each other than our families and it’s intense but you can’t go into it half hearted because you live and breathe and exist with these people and you go through so much, whether they are there for a moment or for a long time it just kind of becomes a big piece of family. A big piece of family?

 

Lennie: Write that down.

 

Alycia: Oh, no. It’s been done.

 

Colman: We spend 14 hours a day with each other. And then outside of those 14 hours a day we’re like, “so what are you doing tomorrow?” “Alycia, what are you doing when you get off?” We still wanna hang out with each other.

 

Danay: It’s interesting because of the show, because we’re surviving the apocalypse, like everyday we really deal with a lot of high stakes. You know it’s hot, whatever, long scenes, long days, you have to be so present everyday with whoever’s in front of you is there for a day you just give everything you’ve got. You don’t think about somebody, “oh you’re gonna die, I’m gonna be halfway with you.” It’s like, “I’m gonna give you my absolute best and I hope it’s a long journey, but whatever it is, I’ve always got you.” That’s kind of like what’s been … I mean when I joined the show we’re in Mexico and that’s what they taught me, that’s what Frank Dillane taught me. He’s like, “whatever’s gonna happen, we’re in a relationship right now, what’s gonna happen with us tomorrow?” I don’t know, but he’s always got me and now I feel like he’s right here too for me. So it’s one of those things, it’s beautiful.

 

Q) So you talked about Lennie James being on the toilet this year, what about zombies, do they poop?

 

Lennie: What did I say? What did I say? What did I say? It’s gonna be the next thing that people want to know. It’s exactly what I said. Thank you, Bill Bailey. If I was holding it, I’d drop it.

 

Voice: I think that’s why they’re so cranky.

 

Voice: They’re constipated.

 

Voice: They’re just not called walkers anymore.

 

Voice: I think there’s a fermentation process.

 

Alycia: Oh my god.

 

Voice: And it results in you know.

 

Alycia: Oh my god, that’s awful.

 

Voice: It’s not really a hurricane.

 

Lennie: Maggie loves this conversation, don’t you, Maggie?

 

Maggie: cause it goes there in like five minutes, that’s why they walk so strangely.

 

Lennie: Thank you.

 

Q) Not just for “Fear the Walking Dead” or “The Walking Dead,” but for people you get involved with both behind the camera and in front of the camera, how do you prepare for the loss of a character who’s been on your show for so long? Both as a character and as an actor or as the creative that gets the story going to where it goes?

 

Colman: You don’t. I’ll just tell you that. I’ll just lead it. I think that you find out and it’s devastating, cause it’s someone that you’re used to working with all the time and you enjoy working with so much, but then you also understand the nature of it and understand storytelling, so it’s a lot of things to process and you have to also process new people coming in at the same time. I’ll be very honest with you, the first maybe couple months in our season, we were all doing a balancing act, trying to figure it all out together. And also we were in a new location, so it required intense amounts of grace and patience and frustration and being honest about your feelings. Feeling like it sucks sometimes and then also feeling like, “Okay, but we need to lean into this because this is the nature of it.” We’re all trying to move forward and tell a good story. And we’re all trying to give each other dignity and grace and respect. And so I think at the core of it and I think, I’ll just say I applaud all of our efforts because I think we really leaned into it in a really beautiful way that was very difficult. I mean just imagine losing two of your core in one season and we found out right before we started and it was just devastating for everyone. And I’m sure for the writers for every department…And we’re all doing this dance together, so by the end of our season there was a moment we’re all sitting around in the tents and it just felt so…it felt like we could smell the air again and you could breathe. And you’re like, “Okay, this is what it is right now and this is a calm.” Because it may happen again and you kind of have to find a new way to deal with one another and embrace each other again. But I think the nature … we all signed up to a show like this, the nature of it, at the very essence of it, is people trying to hold onto each other. So, that’s what we’re absolutely trying to do and to tell the best stories that we can.

 

Alycia: It’s funny too because it’s the transition that’s really the hardest. Once it’s actually done then there’s, I find…I think it’s different for many people, but for me there’s actually a sense of relief and then like a release that happens when you’re like, “Okay, now we can move on and now it’s a different thing.” And then you’re excited and happy for it to be a different thing. But it’s also worth noting that they still exist in real life. We do still see them and hang out so they’re not dead.

 

Maggie: I really appreciate Colman. I feel like you really came alongside of us and you really ushered us into the group through that process., I remember that night too. Everyone felt like on a team. We really gelled.

 

Lennie: Yeah. I was gonna say, I don’t think this would’ve been possible, regardless of how much people wanted it. If it wasn’t for the generosity of Alycia and Colman and Danay and Kim and Frank [Dilane]. Without their generosity, without their ability to understand that it was a tricky situation, but to take on board and embrace what the possibilities were and the roles that they had in those possibilities it would’ve been a nonstarter. We got lucky.

 

Q) I just wanted to know with “The Walking Dead,” do you feel less or more pressure with this show since there’s nothing it is really based off it? Do you feel more comfortable? You have more free thoughts. You don’t have to go with the expectations of what the comic books have done like with “The Walking Dead?”

 

Answer: I mean, I’d say it’s a double-edged sword because sometimes we really wish we had a comic book we could turn to for ideas. But at the same time, we do have this incredible sense of freedom to look at what “The Walking Dead” has done and say we’ll what haven’t they done and really use that as a jumping off point and just try to do things that are really different and that’s what we’ve tried to do with the back half of this season.

 

Q) Which death hit you the most, Travis or Nick?

 

Jenna: The sociopath that killed people or the loving brother and son?

 

Answer: I would say Nick.

 

Alycia: Yeah, for me.

 

Answer: I think for all of us, Nick.

 

Alycia: Although, I was the only one there for Travis and that was pretty hard. It was like a fall. He fell out of a helicopter, I remember.

 

Danay: I fainted at the wrong time and he had to come and pick me up and that’s why he fell out of the helicopter and died.

 

Alycia: Nick was hard though.

 

Answer: Nick was really, really, really, really hard in every way. And the way that story came out, it’s a strange thing in serving a death on the show when people like you wanna do it right, you wanna do the character justice, you wanna do the work of the actor justice and if you do and you execute it well, it just means that people are gonna be that much more sad. And you yourself can be affected. And it can be so sad, especially when the actor does such an amazing job right up until the moment they’re gone. I was looking forward to working with Frank and I enjoyed the whole time I got to work with him and I was amazed with the work that he did do. So, wow I feel like I brought the room down. But, yeah, that’s my sad answer.

 

Q) I have a question for Mr. Domingo. What I want to know as someone who’s an actor, playwright and producer, how do you in your mind self-criticize yourself considering you can wear all three hats?

 

Colman: I think I trust others around me as well to question and interrogate my work as well. I think no one as good as their team as well. When I had the privilege of directing an episode this season, and I do say this, and I really do mean this, it is all of our episode because everyone set me up in the room to win. There are many things that I did not know. There were things that I did know, there were things that I needed to lean into and learn a different way and I learned a lot. I learned from my cast and my crew, my transpo, PA’s; you name it. I learned from everyone, so I think it was such a team effort and I know that that’s usually how I define my own work as well is by your team. I’m not an actor that really…I may prepare my scene and my work at home, but when I come in I leave myself open to…Well, what’s Jenna gonna do, what’s Danay doing, what’s Alycia doing and how is that gonna help me form my work. And then to be open with how Michael may direct us as well. In that way I become less beholden of my own work and it’s more about the work of everyone else together. It’s a group effort, honestly. But that’s just the way I think about all creating because I like to create in a room with other people and interrogate and question the work together. So, it is a group effort.

 

Q) While I’ve been watching “Fear the Walking Dead,” it seems like first season you do the order test it out see how it is, the second season you got more intense and I feel like you guys just took off in three and four. And it was great! Loved it. I just want to know if that was a way you were building towards it or if all of a sudden you guys were like, “Okay, let’s just pick it up?” And for the cast, you guys stepped it to turn the way it did, with so many people moving on from the show and for the new cast if you thought you’d even have the opportunity to come on or if you were thinking about it at any point?

 

Answer: Coming into this what we liked so much about “The Walking Dead” universe is that it is this universe that kind of runs itself to reinvention and really every eight episodes we kind of look at how we can change up the show, how can we make it right, how can we come up with a new angle and what became was Season Four, was that idea, like what could we do that’s different. For the first half of the season and then the back end said, “Well, how can we take this in a new different direction?” And just asking ourselves that question again and again and really push the boundaries of what we’re doing.

 

Answer: And that variety takes so many different forms. It’s tonal variety. It’s a variety with character arcs, semantics, walkers, what we do with walkers…That’s the exciting thing about it, that there’s a reinvention and an opportunity to get incredible variation from episode to episode, half season to half season, so that’s where [inaudible] amazing broad canvas to work with.

 

Q) I was curious for the newer cast members on the series, as you continue to kind of build and explore these characters, is there anything that you’re surprised to learn about yourselves as actors and actresses and those who have been on the series, are there any surprises you continue to learn about yourself as you continue these story lines?

 

Jenna: I’ve had a real amazing journey as an artist. I’ve learned so much about myself. I’ve learned how much I don’t know, how much I can learn. I was learning things in aspects of emotion and character I never even touched before. I personally think working with Garret and Lennie has been a huge master class for me. It’s really helped me grow as an actor and learn things that I’ve never done before, never had the chance to know. So, I got to learn…because you don’t know what you don’t know sometimes, so I got to find out what I don’t know. And then I got to grow into that. And I just feel like Mikey being there, for me, it’s been like a safe…I don’t like if I feel like I’m in a hostile environment, maybe other people do, but I don’t. I just don’t enjoy weird things and when you have someone like Mikey who makes it so safe. It’s okay to be and learn and grow. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to become better. It’s okay to find out. And I enjoyed that process. I enjoyed being vulnerable and growing and that’s what this has been for me. I feel like I’m just arriving at being able to start creating and I’m really excited about everyone seeing the second half. I felt like I was living the same journey my character goes on in the second half and where she ends up. I feel like I was having a simultaneous experience with that and I’m really looking forward to what they’re gonna do going into season five. That’s what it’s been for me. It’s been transformative and vulnerable and awesome. I just feel very alive.

 

Voice: You have arrived. You’ve fully arrived. We all know.

 

Q) For Scott, I think you’ve talked in the past a bit about your plans to expand the universe of “The Walking Dead.” Greg Nicotero told me fairly recently that he’d like to take the action out of America and explore some frozen zombies, what do you think of that and where would you like to take the world of “The Walking Dead?”

 

Scott: I’m currently working on some things that answer that question, so I shouldn’t answer it now. But there’s a lot of stuff that’s cooking in the garage right now and you know what, the frozen walker battle continues and you never know where it could wind up. It could wind up on “The Walking Dead.” It could wind up on this show. It could be a half hour television program with just a frozen walker. It’d be very quiet. But yeah, we’re working on a lot of things and as the months go on we’ll have a lot more to say about it.