The Walking Dead Feature Preview

A sneak peek at our exclusive The Walking Dead feature in SFX #215

“With the intensity, what’s interesting is, it erodes you,” says the hazel-eyed Sarah Wayne Callies, AKA Grimes’ wife Lori. “As an actor, you’re tired by it, right? I don’t think the human psyche is designed to sustain that kind of intensity for very long. And yet, these people can’t get out of it. So it starts to work the characters. You’re so deep in it for such a long time it allows the characters to change. One of the great exciting things to me this season is that every character changes. We start to see some real darkness, and sometimes some real light, and beauty, and strength, and power where you don’t expect it.”
Of course there’s a certain satisfaction that comes with a good zombie kill… “Oh my god,” says Norman Reedus, The Walking Dead ’s Daryl Dixon, a trigger-happy redneck who allies with Grimes’ group. “There are so many good zombie kills. I think one thing they wanted to do was up the ante on the coolness of zombie kills this season. I heard about that from day one – ‘We’re gonna beat that.’ My first kill was awesome. It was so fun. This is the best job ever.”
“In the second season you really get an analogy of walking with the audience, sort of... exploring,” says executive producer and zombie make-up guru Greg Nicotero. “I read the first seven scripts [of season two] in one weekend and it fucked me up. And I spent the next four days looking at my children going, ‘How will I protect them?’ It’s so profound. The story is so intense about keeping the family together, the dynamics of that. I spent days thinking, ‘Okay, so where would I take my kids?’
How about the so-called “love triangle” between Rick, his wife Lori, and his best friend Shane? “There’s a change of allegiance,” says the show’s star Andrew Lincoln. “And also, there are two major things that happen very early on in the season that have a profound effect on this group of people and also move this relationship to even higher stakes, if that’s possible. But it is, and the writers have come up with it. And it’s genius. I can’t tell you any more [laughs].”

The Walking Dead series two comes to FX in the UK on Friday 21 October.

There are loads, loads more intriguing revelations about The Walking Dead series three in SFX #215. Don't miss it when it comes out on Wednesday, or order your iPhone or iPad version here .

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.