The Walking Dead has gone through a pretty long list of showrunners, with Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont being the most famous of them all. He ran The Walking Dead until he was fired halfway through filming of season two, kicking off a contentious lawsuit with AMC that continues to wind its way through the courts today.
But even though Darabont and AMC hate each others’ guts, he seems to have left a good impression on the stars of The Walking Dead — those who remain alive from his days on the show, that is. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Andrew Lincoln called the season Darabont was forcefully removed “the most painful year of my career.”
Melissa McBride, who plays Carol, only got to interact with the “elusive” Frank a few times, but said it was “a gift” to work with such a creative force. Meanwhile, Norman Reedus was just happy Darabont agreed with his view that Daryl Dixon should be as grimy and filthy as possible.
“I’m always trying to be filthy on the show,” Reedus told Entertainment Weekly. “But the makeup artist said, ‘That’s enough dirt.’ But Frank was like, ‘Dirtier!’ and I’m like, ‘I love this guy.’ He’s super f—ing cool and I wish I had more time with him, to be honest.”
Darabont hasn’t been all that prolific since leaving The Walking Dead. Even though his relationship with TNT was apparently much better than the AMC situation, his show Mob City still got cancelled after one season. And since then … nothing. Other than occasional shocking updates from the Walking Dead lawsuit showing what money-grubbing jerkbags some of the AMC people seem to be, that is.
But it’s hard to fault AMC too much when the show managed to make such a marked improvement after replacing Darabont. They say you never want to see how the sausage is made, and maybe that’s the case with zombie apocalypse shows, too.
(via Entertainment Weekly)
