After what feels like forever, season seven of The Walking Dead is finally almost upon us. And that means tons of interviews with the cast of the show discussing the impact the roles have played on their lives professionally. Andrew Lincoln, who plays lead Rick Grimes, had a very active career in the UK with roles in hits like Love Actually and This Life. But having a consistent gig for the past several years obviously agrees with him.
“I didn’t realize that I would ever play something for six years,” he said in an article from the Express. “You come in with six years of history with an audience who sit there with that knowledge and it takes the pressure off somewhat and makes it more real in a sense.”
“I love it,” Lincoln added. “And the people I trained with at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts think it is hilarious — I am classically trained and yet I wear cowboy boots and a Stetson and I shoot zombies for a living. I am a zombie-slayer so yes, it is [hilarious].”
His friends back in Britain may think a show about the undead is sillier than slapping on tights and reciting Shakespeare, but fortunately here in America we have our priorities straight. The universally beloved Jeffrey Dean Morgan, now The Walking Dead‘s new baddie Negan, is clearly thrilled to be involved in such an important endeavor.
“It is exciting because Jeffrey Dean Morgan has joined the thing and he emailed me the other day and said, ‘I am so excited to be around people that are so creative, so up for doing something and pushing it!’” Lincoln said.
We assume part of ‘pushing it’ involves mercilessly killing off key characters on the show at regular intervals. That’s basically Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s role in season seven, and while most of us are expecting Andrew Lincoln to keep barely surviving by the whiskers on his beard, you never know for sure with The Walking Dead. So it’s good Andrew has enjoyed the past six years. You never know when it all could end in the swing of a baseball bat.
