IGN recently participated in a roundtable interview with three of the stars of AMC's The Walking Dead at San Diego Comic-Con. Here's what stars Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal and Sarah Wayne Callies had to say about the hit show's highly anticipated second season and what viewers can expect from their respective characters coming up. Keep in mind this discussion took place just a few days before Frank Darabont's surprising departure from the series as showrunner.
AMC Comments on Walking Dead Showrunner Change
Andrew Lincoln: The scripts we've worked on so far are just amazing. And I think that just having that frame and also having the episodes establish these characters it feels like they're really dropping now. They feel more grownup. Now that the characters have been in this situation longer, they're trying to come to terms with living in this new world. I think these scripts are just amazing, amazing. We're just loving being involved with it, aren't we?
Sarah Wayne Callies: They did something that I've never heard of a show doing which is, in an act of unprecedented generosity, Frank [Darabont] and the writers invited the cast in one at a time for several hours to talk about what was going to happen before they started breaking the second season. I sort of expected to come in and have them say, 'Right. Here's what we've planned for you. Go forth and conquer.' But they had questions, and they really wanted to engage with us. You know, 'How did your character feel about this?' and 'When you did this, what were you thinking?' And I think that allowed for a sort of collaborative feedback move. The scripts that have come out of that have been, not only really rich and wonderful, but every single character has these threads that track so beautifully. There's no character who's just there to be the one that's like, 'This is the exposition line!' or 'I'm gonna be funny!' You know, everybody has an incredible arc you could build a whole show around. And I think that was just a brilliant and incredibly generous move on Frank's part to open it up to our thoughts.
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Q: Can you give a description of the relationship between these three characters this season? There's some tension there. How will it progress?
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Jon Bernthal:: It will be fresh. I think one of the things is that I've heard people refer to it as a love triangle. For some reason, that just seems so not at all what this is. I think that one of the things I love about this season is that I was worried about-- I think that any time you deal with this kind of thing-- it can become redundant really fast. It makes you sort of have to play the same thing, and you're sort of stuck in a certain place. And what they've done is basically just taken a situation where, yes, there is a lot of tension, there's so much love. There's so much history between these characters and with Carl as well. It's a real kind of family dynamic where we rely on each other, and we mean so much to each other, and we tear each other apart so much. But what they've been able to do is introduce all these new factors that are completely different and just make the stakes go so much higher. It's not just this sort of underlying tension of secrets. There's so much more that comes out, and instead of just moving on from it, what they've done is they've sort of really stuck a nail into the wound that is this relationship and looking at it from all these different angles, just trying to make you see it from a totally new angle, in a new light. Wouldn't you?
Lincoln: Yeah, I think that's perfect. And also, there were two major things that happened earlier on in the season that have had a profound effect on this group of people and also move on this relationship to higher stakes if that's possible. But it is, and the writers have come up with it, and it's genius... and we can't tell you anymore. [laughs] But it's shocking. It really is.
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Bernthal: But it's not the questions that maybe you were asking last season. It's more complicated. It's way more complicated, and that's just great. There's not a redundant second.
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Callies: Which I think is part of what's great about the context of the show. Things become possible that wouldn't be possible otherwise. You know, simple female perspective: man tries to force himself on you, and you can't forgive that. But we're at the end of the world, and there are three people in the world alive that I knew a month ago. So the ability for Lori to try and get past what happened in the rec room or rationalize it or let it go, because the circumstances are so extreme, I think we are finding that we have to have the capacity for forgiving unforgivable things or holding one another accountable, sometimes very small things. And that just speaks of the show: Change what I think could otherwise become a very redundant dynamic.
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Lincoln: I do think the show is about humanity, what's left of humanity, if it's worth holding onto humanity. These are all the kind of issues when it's so life-or-death. It's people's choices at the end of the world, when everything's stripped away from it. We're blessed with the fact that we can have an action sequence, an intense kind of edit. And then the next minute, you have a very intimate scene about a love affair. That's the reason I did this job, not to play Rick but because of that character Morgan in the pilot episode. I went, 'That's it! Genius.' You have a zombie apocalypse, and yet you talk about what's left of humanity, what it is to be human.
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Callies: Also, what's interesting is that it erodes you, right? As an actor you're tired by it, but the human psyche isn't designed to sustain that kind of intensity for very long, and yet these people can't get out of it. So it starts to warp the characters. You're so deep in it for such a long time, and it allows the character to change. I think one of the great, exciting things about the second season is every character changes. We start to see some real darkness, and sometimes some real light and beauty and strength where you don't expect it. It's that intensity that's the sort of forge out of which those things come. It's great dramatically for us too.
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Q: Can you talk about working with Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes) this season?
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Lincoln: We've just been through three-and-a-half, four weeks of working with all three of us, and it's just been amazing. The lines that we have to deliver and the situation is extraordinary. He's brilliant. He's just brilliant, this kid, and we're very lucky to have him. He's kind of old before his years, and he really brings that. I think it's important. There's the picture of us on the caravan, and the only person looking into the camera is Carl. And it feels like this is when the boy becomes the man.
Callies: I think a big negotiation is how much-- and we all three I think feel different about this-- how much should we facilitate him getting older. We keep him safe by keeping him innocent--
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Bernthal: Shielding him, yeah.
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Callies: And we keep him safe by saying, 'Watch that, watch that. I'm not going to shield your eyes this time. This time, you watch that.' And that's a really interesting balance, but it's also a really human balance for every parent. How do you prepare your kids for a world that's getting uglier every day? Each character comes from a really different perspective, and what's interesting I think is that creates as much tension between the three of us, how to best raise Carl, than anything that's happened, you know, in the woods or anything. Because we're all talking about that, and it's a big struggle. He's the love of each of our lives.
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Q: How far ahead do you want to know what's in store for your characters?
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Callies:�I think it's helpful to have at least a couple episodes ahead so you can layer a couple thoughts in and have a sense of where you're going. This is a show where reality is so much moment-to-moment that I think often you kind of read that information, and you take it in and you let it wash out of your head and you go right now what's happening. Right now, how do you play this scene? Some awareness is helpful for no other reason that you sort of get a jump on your lines... and we rehearse things together.
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The Walking Dead: Season 2 premieres Oct. 16 on AMC.