Available on Sky Max and streaming service NOW from 31 May 2024, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is the hotly anticipated spinoff series from the popular franchise of The Walking Dead. The series explores the story of Rick Grimes and what happened after he left the group of survivors in the main series.
Scott M. Gimple is an American writer who is known for his work on the original series of The Walking Dead and the spinoff The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Ahead of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live launching in the US, Scott spoke about his experience working on the new series.
How did this project come together?
This project was a lot of hopes and wishes mixed together. Around season 6 I had the feeling that Andrew Lincoln might want to be leaving relatively soon, and I didn’t want his departure to be the end of his character, Rick Grimes, because I felt there were more stories to tell with him. So, I started building a mythology in the background of The Walking Dead that maybe we could use to exit Rick. In season 7, I told him about it and, as he was keen to continue telling stories about the character. We planted the seeds of what Rick’s story could be. Time passed, the world changed, a pandemic happened, and we were exiting Danai from the show too, so I worked on that with Michonne in a way that would feed upon this mythology that was set up for Rick. Then suddenly they were both available again and I asked them, “What is the story you would both want to tell with all the ingredients and the mythology that we have?” So, we started working on this story together and got very excited about what we were coming up with. There was a momentum to it that was undeniable.
As a result, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is centred around Rick and Michonne’s story.
Yes, it is the story of two people who are powerful, charismatic, and crazy in a lot of ways but who lost that when they were separated. So, how do they get that back? And do they need to do it in order to survive? We were excited about seeing that world through Rick and Michonne’s points of view and how it might feed and give context to one another. But this is a world that has twisted people, and they are facing dangerous villains.
It must have been special to see them together on set again.
Even though I had continued seeing Andy and Danai during these years, a different thing was being with them on set because I hadn’t seen Rick and Michonne for some time.
A great new role is Pearl Thorne, played by South African native – like the character – Lesley-Ann Brandt.
Yes, Lesley was remarkable. We had a lot of good people audition for that role, but as soon as we saw her, we were like, “OK, there she is!” Thorne needed to stand toe-to-toe with Rick Grimes, and she did.
Who is Thorne in your eyes?
I see her essentially as someone who could have been Rick’s partner, and I don’t mean romantically. She is his brother-in-arms.
Terry O’Quinn also joins the franchise as Major General Beale.
I was a big fan of Terry’s, and I remember being on a call with him trying to convince him to do this. When we got off the phone, I thought, “I think he is going to do it.” And then the next day I heard that he was in. It was incredible.
Jadis, played by Pollyanna McIntosh, returns to the story to complicate things even more.
Pollyanna is somebody I have counted on again and again, and she has never let me down. She managed to bring this challenging character to life in a very real way, completely transforming her in The Walking Dead: World Beyond and again here.
The Walking Dead is a show like no other. What do you believe makes it so unique?
I just think it is this cocktail of amazing bigger-than-life characters with real human stories. So, there is emotion, action, and zombies of course – which are a very unique threat. These hordes of walkers force human cooperation and relationships that I love and that audiences all over the world have come to love too. And then there are the special effects and the filmmaking, but at its core it’s about the characters.
What is a normal day like on set? It must be quite entertaining due to everything that’s going on and these actors embodying walkers that are maybe eating sandwiches at craft services…
Well, this set was unique because we shot in New Jersey. Some of our crew members had grown up with the show, which was interesting. Andy and Danai – who take it very seriously – always bring an amazing level of commitment, professionalism, and warmth to any set they go to. And then you do have walkers eating sandwiches in a corner; so, there is a level of lightness and surrealness to the whole thing as well. Having normally shot in Georgia, here we were in New Jersey in February working in colder conditions than ever before. So, those zombies eating sandwiches were the unsung heroes because if being a walker is already tough work, now they were doing it in a negative 10-degree windchill, falling down and playing dead on the ground. I couldn’t believe how amazing they were! It was a wild ride…
Being involved with the show from its inception, what part of the process of making it do you enjoy the most?
I absolutely love the writing aspect of it when I’m really getting deep into it, while the story and characters come together. And while I love the writing, the editing can also be really gratifying when you put things together and realize the things that do or don’t work. Andy and Danai were involved during every step of the process, and having Andy especially see the post-production process was like seeing a friend get into something you have always been into. And the same can be said about Danai who not only wrote episode 4 of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, but essentially ran it too! It was amazing to let Danai do her thing and be a resource to her.