Modern Family in the Zombie Apocalypse: That's one way to frame AMC's long-awaited spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead. Creator Robert Kirkman deliberately tried to differentiate this show by locating it in Los Angeles, and by telling the story through the eyes of a somewhat dysfunctional extended family with two very different teenagers.
I discussed this new group of characters, as well as the subsequent casting decisions, with Producer Gale Anne Hurd. Below is Part 2 of my interview, which does contain some spoilers for the first episode, while Part 1 is a spoiler-free zone.
Let's talk about the core group of characters and what they deal with in the pilot. There's an interesting vibe with the cross-cultural families and the step parents and kids.
That’s part of it. We also never had people of college age on the show. That was another entirely new world to explore, with age ranges we’ve never really explored. And we're exploring what happens to a family that was already coping with significant drama before the apocalypse. They thought their emotional plate was full, and now the world is infected with a virus that turns people into zombies.
Kim Dickens might be my absolute favorite television actress. As good as she was in Deadwood and Treme, she really carries this show.
We really did an international search for all the actors, which is why we have actors from all over. Madison is the first person you need to connect with. She’s the one with the drug-addicted son. She’s trying to make it work with her boyfriend who just moved in. She really thinks of herself as “not a catch” because anyone who’s in love with her is inheriting the existing problems with her family.
Kim Dickens is such a fantastic actress, she doesn’t have to say anything and you get it. Not only how deeply she cares about her son and her daughter, but also the kids in the high school. She wants to fix things. As a guidance counselor that’s her job. But she can’t fix her own family.
Nick is kind of a mess, but at the end of the first episode he's actually got the best grip on the reality of the situation and manages to save everyone.
There’s a duality in the character of Nick that’s played beautifully by Frank Dillane. Nick is a very complex character to bring to life. It could have been not only very one note, but someone we deeply dislike. But he’s been able to get us to invest in him as a character, and invest in that duality. It’s a duality that drug addicts have. They can be very charming. But ultimately, all they care about is their next score.
That's something we never had to think about in The Walking Dead. Aside from a little bit of drinking, The Walking Dead is pretty wholesome in that regard.
But one of the characters who isn't [particularly wholesome] is also one of the most beloved: Daryl Dixon. Although Daryl wasn’t in the comic book either.
Unlike The Walking Dead, where we're thrown right into the action, in the pilot we spend a lot of time developing these characters even at the expense of showing a lot of the walkers.
It’s important to have a buy-in to brand new characters who didn't exist before the show. By the end of the pilot and, certainly by the end of the first season, they need to feel as familiar as the characters in the comic book.
How does Fear the Walking Dead work into building The Walking Dead as a business?
That’s not my focus. The rights are controlled by Skybound and AMC. From my perspective the only reason to do this is to do it well enough that the show is worth watching even if the previous comic book and The Walking Dead didn’t exist. If this can stand on its own, irrespective of that universe, we’ve succeeded and that’s how we approached it.
What did you think of the Fear The Walking Dead pilot? Did it meet your expectations? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
