People
tend to know well ahead of time that we intend to put them on the
cover of
Entertainment Weekly. Not so the quartet of
folks who are featured, in zombie form, on
this week’s Walking Dead-celebrating
issue alongside the show’s star, Andrew Lincoln. “One of my
other zombie friends from the show texted me a picture and was
like, ‘Look! You’re on the cover!’” says Alyssa Courtney Gruhn
(a.k.a., “Bottom right cover zombie”).
“I was like, ‘Whaaat?’ It came out of nowhere. It was pretty
awesome.” Music store manager Charles Casey was similarly
surprised to find himself following in the EW cover-decorating
footsteps of such luminaries as Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie,
Julia Roberts, and, uh,
the dog from Frasier. “I got a call
from my boss, who subscribes, and he informed me that I was on
the cover,” says Casey, who is the zombie on the far left. “I
actually work next to a Barnes & Noble, so I gave the heads
up to my friend who works there and he bought all the copies they
got this week. I have 15 sitting in front of me.”
Maybe we should put non-A-listers on our cover more often. Think
of all the extra copies we could sell! In the meantime, after the
jump, our quartet of undead unknowns reveal how they got their
Walking Dead roles in the first place,
recall the heat-blasted Atlanta shoot, and tell us their
zombie-playing secrets.
SONYA THOMPSON
Entertainment Weekly: How did you get the Walking
Dead gig?
ST: I was also a zombie on
Zombieland and the agency
that got me that audition said, “Hey, you’ve been chosen to be a
zombie in
The Walking Dead.” It just went from there. I
attended zombie school, where they taught you how to move, and
where they chose their 20 core zombies that were going to be
featured.
EW: Is it worrying that you’ve been cast as a zombie
twice?
ST: It is kind of a joke for me. Because I was also a zombie in
Night of the Jackals, which is this little independent
thing. Then I went to
Zombieland, and in [TV movie]
Ben 10 I was kind of like a zombie too. So when I got
this one I was joking with the casting company that they were
type-casting me. [Laughs]
EW: Is it true you’ve started to get invited to
conventions.
ST: I have been invited to the
Atlanta
Comic Con, which is next weekend, and I’ve also been invited
to one in Nebraska and that’s in June. The zombie thing seems to
be really working for me. Hey, if I’ve got it, I’ve got it,
right?
LARRY MAINLAND
Entertainment Weekly: How did you get the Walking Dead
gig?
LM: I’m a newbie to this whole thing. The
Walking Dead
is the first thing I ever did. A good friend of mine said, “You
look like a zombie
without any makeup. You really ought
to put in for it.” I went, “Well, gee, thanks.” But he had done a
couple of extra acting stints and he had a ball doing it. So I
told my wife, “What the heck?” I put in my information thinking
it would never happen and two minutes later I got a phone call.
Greg Nicotero [
Walking Dead makeup effects supervisor],
he said, “You were one that has ‘The look.’”
EW: What’s your favorite memory from the
shoot?
LM: It’s an overall memory. I was amazed at how nice Greg
Nicotero and his crew from KNB were, in making us up and
everything. Frank Darabont [
Walking Dead executive
producer and pilot director], he was an incredibly busy man. But
he’d stop right in the middle of whatever he was doing to answer
any question you had and to go out of his way to be friendly. And
that’s not the way I thought directors were. The biggest memory?
We all had the same thing. I live here, but it was incredibly hot
that month. We had an index temperature during the tank scene
that was 105. And I believe in that particular scene, I was
wearing a sweater. It was like, “Okay, when they go “Cut!” we
start stripping as best we can. Because it was
hot. But
it gave us all that dead look, I’m telling you. So it worked out
good.
EW: What’s the secret to playing a zombie?
LM: Well, what Frank kept telling us was: “Quit trying to be
everybody you see. Do it
your way. If I see a horde
coming down a street, I don’t want to see two people together.
Because if everybody looks the same, I’ve got to cut and do it
all over again.”
EW: Are you surprised by the success of the
show?
LM: This has become a phenomenon. I think the top people knew
this was going to happen. But all of us were surprised at how
this thing has taken off. And even with us, we’re all going back
and forth: “Man, that hour flew by!” We’re surprised you put us
on the cover. But my picture
was inside the Bullseye two
weeks ago. There’s some good-looking guy in the middle [Joe
Manganiello from
True Blood] and I’m on the right side
of him. People were telling me I was right beside the middle. I
said, “No, that’s me
in the middle!” [Laughs]
ALYSSA COURTNEY GRUHN
Entertainment Weekly: How did you get the Walking
Dead gig?
ACG: I’m an actress, but I actually got the gig because I was
working at a haunted house in Atlanta called
Netherworld. It’s
one of the nation’s top haunted houses and the casting director
sent an e-mail to the owner saying, “Tell all your employees to
come out and audition.” So I auditioned and Greg Nicotero loved
me. And I love him. He’s the coolest guy that I think I’ve ever
met in my entire life. I got to be in a lot of cool stuff on the
show. It was so much freakin’ fun.
EW: What scenes are you in?
ACG: I was at pretty much every zombie shoot. I was in the first
scenes in the tank, but only I can really see myself, because
there are so many other zombies. In the last episode, I was the
zombie that attacked Ed in the tent and then directly after that
I’m in the scene with Greg Nicotero when he’s getting Amy.
EW: Ed was actually the first person to get bitten
onscreen in the entire show. Which makes you the first
killer-zombie.
ACG: I’M THE FIRST KILLER ZOMBIE!!! I never thought of it that
way. That’s awesome. I guess I am. But people were dying left and
right that episode. That was crazy.
EW: What’s the secret to playing a zombie?
ACG: Everybody has their own style. I like to let my eyes focus
on my surroundings, but I don’t focus on anything in particular.
So it looks like you have a blank zombie stare on your face. And
you kind of open up your mouth a little, just like you’re real
dumb, like there’s nothing going on up there in your head.
Basically, acting dumb is what I do. [Laughs]. And it works!
CHARLES CASEY
Entertainment Weekly: How did you get the Walking Dead
gig?
CC: I manage a used CD and movie store in Atlanta called
CD
Warehouse. I’ve been reading the comic for a few years now
and when I found out they were going to film here I sent my stuff
in and was lucky enough to get in.
EW: What was the shoot like?
CC: Other than the miserable heat, it was a dream scenario. Like
I said, I’ve been a fan of the comic for a long time. I love all
the Darabont movies. I love Greg Nicotero’s work. While I was on
set I had the chance to meet Charlie Adlard, who draws the comic.
He played a zombie with us for two of the days. I met
[
Walking Dead comic writer] Robert Kirkman. Everybody
was super pleasant. I still can’t believe I got paid to do
it.
EW: How much have you been featured on the
show?
CC: So far the majority of the scenes that I’ve done have either
been cut or you’ve seen me in the background. They basically
tiered the zombies out in makeup level. So ‘A’ would be like an
hour, two hour job. ‘B’ would be a lighter job. ‘C’ would be a
mask. And the episode that’s airing this Sunday, when they get to
the CDC, that was the only day that I had an ‘A’ level makeup
job. So I’m hoping this will be the week that you can actually
see my face.
EW: Regardless, you’re definitely on the cover
of our magazine!
CC: Exactly. It is definitely a dream come true. I was bummed in
the beginning when people were getting the cover of
Fangoria and
Rue Morgue. Now that this has come
out I was like, “Man, thank god I didn’t get any of that
stuff!”
EW: Yeah, to hell with those guys! So, what’s the secret
to playing a zombie?
CC: For me, it was really about trying to accentuate whatever
they gave me for a makeup job that day. I would try to take my
zombie motivation from the wounds they gave me.
EW: I think that’s the technique Judi Dench uses as
well.
CC: That’s what we have in common! Greg Nicotero gave us some
really great advice. It seems simple enough, but he said, “Just
go to a bar at two or three o’clock in the morning and watch
those people stumble out. That’s kind of what we’re going
for.”
EW: Robert Kirkman told me Nicotero is always coming up
with reasons why he has to play a particular featured
zombie.
CC: Most definitely. I noticed he gave himself two
really choice roles over the last two episodes! I don’t
blame him. I know, especially when he attacked Amy, there was a
lot of heavy prosthetics that had never been used before.
Obviously you don’t want to stick one of us in that scene and
have us ruin the prosthetics and have to reset everything. I was
familiar with Nicotero’s work going in, but now that I’ve seen
him so much on set, it’s really amazing how many times I see him
pop up in [films]. He’s in from
Dusk Till Dawn for a
couple of seconds. He pops up in
Inglourious Basterds.
He was in
Piranha. It seems like anything he works on,
he works himself into at some point. But he definitely makes a
great zombie!
Source:
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/11/27/walking-dead-cover-nicotero-kirkman/
The Walking Dead have a lot to
celebrate.
