The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira and Greg Nicotero on Carol’s Fate, Michonne’s Intensity, Rick’s Phone Call, and Lots More
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Episode 3.05 of “The Walking Dead,” entitled “Say the Word,” brought us Penny, Rick losing his mind, a mysterious ringing telephone, a zombie pit fight, and Michonne leaving Woodbury without Andrea.
During a recent conference call F/X guru/Episode 3.05 director Greg Nicotero and series star Danai Gurira (Michonne) discussed the show and covered topics ranging from Carol’s fate, Michonne’s intensity and her decision to leave Woodbury, introducing viewers to Penny and the ringing phone only Rick can hear, creating Michonne’s now departed companions, and LOTS more. Read on for the highlights.
Can you talk about when we will find out what happened to Carol?
Greg Nicotero: One of the challenging things about Episode 4 was that she disappears. They find part of her clothing and they’ve never found her. They’ve never really found Lori’s body; you just see sort of the remnants of the blood drag. So as far as everyone knows, Carol has suffered the same fate as everyone else, but that will be revealed shortly.
Can you talk a little bit about Michonne’s decision to leave Woodbury? Might she be heading back? Maybe she misses Andrea.
Danai Gurira: There are certain things that you just have to wait and see. Trust me; you’ll see where it ends up. But yes, her decision was pretty obvious in the beginning. She wasn’t happy at Woodbury. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that this was really working against what her instincts were okay with, being in this place with these men having taken her weapon, living under someone else’s rules all of a sudden when she didn’t choose to give them any of that power. So it’s really a complicated thing because you can understand why Andrea wants to be there. There are comforts that she hasn’t seen since before the apocalypse. But Michonne has learned to survive and to thrive through listening to her instincts and never doubting them. And her instincts just get further and further confirmed for her up to the point where there’s no way she can stay there, especially after her experience with The Governor. So it was just a question of really trying to make her friend understand that they needed to get out of there because this place wasn’t a great place for them. But they each had to make their own decisions. And it wasn’t easy.
The zombie at the end… did that zombie consume all of Lori or just parts of Lori? We can’t realistically think the zombie could have eaten all of her, but we don’t really see any of her around.
Greg Nicotero: No. The idea is supposed to be that walker has sort of dragged her around the corner of the boiler room so there’s actually a blood trail that continues past the walker and goes around the corner. The zombie has sort of engorged itself, disgusting as it is, and what we did was, when you first see the walker, you see its extended belly. And we kind of wanted to give a little call back to Lori, even though we clearly know that Lori’s not pregnant anymore. And then we come around the corner. and some of the little touches we added was bits of hair in its mouth and hair in his hand when it reaches up towards Rick. And it was just one of those things that we really wanted to show that this thing had feasted on her–as horrible as it is. And it’s sort of a call back even to Episode 1 in Season 2, when they were going to do the autopsy on the walker to see if it had eaten Sophia and they find the pieces of the woodchuck.
So when Rick gets there and kneels down and pulls the blade out, there’s that moment where you think, ‘Oh God, he’s going to cut it open because he just needs to see.’ It’s almost like a really horrible sick connection. He just needs to be connected. He walks into the room. He sees her clothes on the ground. He picks up the bullet from the ground. It’s a little hard to see until he rotates it, but he picks up the bullet that Carl shot at her. So he keeps that and then walks around the corner and finds the walker. So it’s really the beginning of his descent into madness. He never had a goodbye with her. He never had any resolution, even going into the deepest depths of the prison. That’s a really horrible way for him to have a last final connection with her.
It was important to Sarah (Wayne Callies) that the baby survived. One of the first things that came up when the idea of her death was discussed was that she said, ‘Did the baby survive?’ So getting into the emotional resonance of Lori’s death, there are some boundaries. You may not believe it, but there are a few boundaries here and there on the “The Walking Dead” that we want to preserve.
This episode was like the epitome of shattering of beliefs in the delusions of the characters, and it culminates at the end with Rick and also the mirror of the two camps where you’ve got this horrible darkness of the prison and you’ve got this sweet scene with the baby. But at Woodbury you have this idyllic town and you have this horrible bloodthirstiness in the middle of it. Can you talk about that because you’ve got the delusions of The Governor, you’ve got Rick’s delusions? You’ve got Andrea not wanting to see what’s in front of her. As a director and an actor, what did you and Andrew talk about and go through for that scene of him just losing his shit at the end because that was some powerful stuff?
Greg Nicotero: Everyone was fantastic. Yes, you’re right. One of the clear ideas in the script was that we start on a very light Woodbury party scene and then cut directly from that to Rick reeling from Lori’s death. And as that scene progresses, Woodbury becomes darker and darker because we see Michonne finding the walkers and killing them. Then we have this fantastic scene with Michonne and The Governor, which is one of my favorite scenes in the whole episode. And then as it gets darker and darker, we get into the gladiator fights. Woodbury clearly has some seedy underbelly that Michonne was right about all the time. Her instincts are correct. And then at the prison we find some salvation because Daryl and Maggie go looking for formula and they survive and they succeed in their mission. So getting them back to the prison and getting that great moment where Daryl nicknames the baby Ass-Kicker… it’s really nice to see that the storylines diverge.
Initially you start off with Woodbury going, ‘Yes, this is the place to be,’ and the prison is this horrible dark, dank place. And at the end of it Woodbury doesn’t look quite as cheery as we were led to believe at the beginning, and in the prison there’s a little bit of light. And in shooting sequences with Andy, what was really important to both of us was we shot all his stuff in sequence. We spent one day and just really let him sort of delve into it. And the scene with Rick and Glenn where he grabs Glenn and throws Glenn up against the wall, those are really important moments. And I remember reading the script and going to Stephen Yeun and saying, ‘Hey how you feel about getting a little physical here?’ You know, clearly Rick has gone off the deep end and he doesn’t want any interaction with anyone. He’s clearly just on bloodlust. He’s going to kill every walker he comes in contact with until he finds Lori. So when Glenn gets in his face and touches his arm, Andy actually grabbed him and threw him up against the wall. And both of those guys just loved it becoming physical. You’ve never seen Rick ever do that to any of our other characters, especially Glenn of all people whose character we love so much. So we spent that entire day just sort of descending into that place. And then we ended that last moment in the boiler room. And we had this guy, Alex, in prosthetic makeup. He was covered from head to toe. He had the bloated belly and all that stuff on. And we had an insert chest for him to stab into, but he really got into it… it was fantastic.
How excited were you at being able to introduce viewers to Penny and the telephone?
Greg Nicotero: I was saying to someone yesterday the trick is when they assign directors, you just get a slot. You get like, ‘Okay you’re doing number four, you’re doing number six, you’re doing eight.’ So the slot I got was Episode Five. I had no idea what the story was going to entail until much later. And when I got the script, or I got the story document, and not only was it introducing Penny and introducing the gladiator fights… and the phone. Those great iconic moments from the graphic novel. I was really excited.
I mean, even establishing the pits. Grace Walker and I worked really, really well to establish those great pieces of Woodbury that we had never seen before — the pits and the gladiator fight. But because I have a makeup effects background, that stuff is exciting to me, but also getting a chance to get into really great dramatic pieces. Last season the episode I directed was Dale’s demise. There was one walker in that episode, and it was all drama. I was so excited about that challenge. So for me to have this episode to direct where I had a lot of walker action, and then I had the great scene with Danai and Laurie Holden when they’re at the gate getting ready to split up and Danai walks out, I love that scene; and I love the scene with The Governor and Danai.
Those moments, the great dramatic moments, to me are really what’s at the heart of the show. I love that stuff. I love having the last shots of Daryl at Carol’s grave putting the Cherokee rose down with the beautiful sunrise behind him. It’s really, for me, being on set for the show every day for three years and knowing these characters the way that I know them and seeing the actors make the choices that they make, it really gives me a tremendous insight into the show. And getting a chance to work with all of them and then this year with David Morrissey and Danai and Dallas (Roberts) and everyone, it’s… it just continues to challenge me, and I love that. I always talk about how honored I am to work with such talented actors. And fortunately I have one of them on the phone with me so it’s really pretty amazing.
Are you going to be directing, or did you direct, any other episodes in this third season?
Greg Nicotero: I did. I’ve directed two more episodes. I’m actually in Los Angeles editing Episode 15 right now. And then I fly back to Georgia, and then we start shooting the finale. Each episode is very different, which is, again, what I love. This episode was really jam-packed with 15 different storylines. I mean, if you really try to sit there and separate it out, we have The Governor and Penny, we have The Governor and Michonne, we have Andrea and Michonne. We have Rick’s descent into the prison. We have the pits. We have the gladiator fights. And then we have Daryl and Maggie’s story, and then we have Herschel and Glenn. The episode is so dense and so jam-packed that it was exhausting. This eight days of shooting was just brutal. The nice thing about the other episodes is they’re all very different in tone and in scale and scope. So I’m really proud.
I can’t talk enough about how much I love working on the show. And considering I started in 1984 on Day of the Dead, I just love that people are still ravenous — no pun intended — for this kind of material. You have a great mixture. I always say you have great actors and you have great storytelling and great monsters and you sort of mix them together, and nine times out of 10 it explodes in your face. And it’s that one time when you have just the right balance of scares and character-based drama and storytelling. And I really believe that that’s what we fight to do every week on the show.
Can you talk about the challenge of maintaining Michonne’s intensity?
Danai Gurira: Yes, it is connecting very deeply to who she is and the roots of that. So it’s staying very connected to her back story and to how she consequently interprets the world around her as a result of that. And how she views things. So it is about connecting, staying very connected, to exactly who she is and what goes through her mind and why certain things trigger her. And being very sensitive to her specific triggers, which are obviously hit a couple times in this episode, and so really allowing that to kind of flow through me. I guess it is not that common for a girl to be fully expressive in her rage or in things like that. But I guess I’ve never been the girl who’s had trouble with that so I can help her out in that regard. But really it’s staying very connected to her back story and to why she is who she is and the aspects in my head. I think every character has PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]. It’s just a matter of how it channels through them.
I always kind of connected it to almost that of veterans, where there’s a vigilance. There’s a willingness to take someone down if they have to very quickly. Connecting to that, to her heart and to how she’s interpreting the world around her. And sometimes it’s about staying in character on set. You can’t just go off and start joking with people and eating some M&Ms. You have to really stay with her throughout.
Why you think she bonded with Andrea?
Danai Gurira: I think when she saw Andrea that first time that we see her, she saw a fighter. Andrea was fighting tooth and nail to survive. And she was a fighter. And you can see that. If you’re a fighter, you recognize a fighter. And her instincts, as we were just talking about, also led her to Andrea. She saw someone who she could really say about, ‘This chick I could hang with. She’s not a liability. She’s going to fight to the end just like me.’ And I think that really attracted her to Andrea as a friend and as someone to align with. I think she was lonely. She’d been on her own with these walkers, and you start to want human company.
But I think that initial instinct she had towards Andrea, as we know she listens to her instincts, she saw a fighter. And she saw a woman that she could hang with and they’d make a great team. And then they developed a closeness as a result of that initial instinct’s response.
Michonne is like a live wire; she’s like an exposed nerve all the time. From an acting perspective what do you do to keep yourself in that moment all the time? Is that a difficult thing for you?
Danai Gurira: I can’t tell you all my secrets, you know? Girl’s got to keep some mystery. But it is something that requires a lot of focus, a lot of giving all I’ve got to her, which is what I love. I’ve loved that about her from the beginning. I knew this was going to take every ounce of everything I had to give in terms of the specificity of who she is. And so I knew going in it was going to be intense. And I love that. I love giving everything I’ve got, or having to give all I’ve got, to a character’s needs.
It’s staying the zone. That’s the key thing I can tell you; I have to remain in a certain amount of the zone for her. It’s as I was saying before, it’s really about how she interprets the circumstances that are surrounding her and how she’s hyper-ready. Sometimes I liken her to a type of wildcat type thing, like a puma. She’s hyper-ready at any second because she’s aware of things. She’s thinking five steps ahead. She’s fully aware of what’s around her and what she might have to do at any second, and she’s ready to do it. And being in that mind of hers, there are other things that I do to nurture that, but I can’t tell you all my little things.
Since you’re obviously playing off a back story that you know about but we as viewers don’t, is that something that the production actually gave you from the start or something you’ve created for yourself? Because there’s very little in terms of back story that comes out of the comic so I wonder where that story actually comes from for you.
Danai Gurira: Yes, we did adapt it with the writers and Glen [Mazzara]. We did adapt it into who she is for the show. And we did use aspects of what’s in the book. But there’s always the adaptation and the interpretation for the screen. As an actor you add in things that allow you to become the character more fully, but there is also very much a collaboration of ideas and what she was and who she was from the writers’ room. So we’re all on the same page in that regard. And then, of course, as an actor you keep it alive in different ways and enrich it in different ways and specify it in different ways. So yes, to answer your question, I’ll give you that. It’s not exactly what’s in the book.
Greg Nicotero: And you know what I love about this episode as well is that it really gives us an opportunity to learn more about her. And I think that when Danai was talking about the puma and that sort of charged animal, the scene with Michonne and The Governor where he gets up and he walks behind her and he’s holding her sword, in that scene she’s like a coiled cobra. And I love that when he’s talking, he’s holding her weapon and he’s saying, ‘Oh, you know, we can probably find a place for you.’ And then when she strikes, it’s instantaneous. And what I love about this episode is we really learn a lot more about Michonne in regards to her relationship with Andrea and how she feels about Woodbury and her instincts.
And in the scene she’s generally hurt. When she’s left at the gate with Andrea and they’re talking about leaving, you know, she’s hurt. I love that vulnerability we see in Michonne and the decisions that she makes where she needs to do it, she needs to do for her character. I love that. And I was really excited about that, exploring a little bit more about who Michonne is in this episode. I think it gives us a lot of good insight into who she is.
The thing that really strikes me is what you were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, the notion that Rick encounters this zombie that’s actually consumed most of his late wife. But the scene is virtually non-verbal. There’s no dialogue. We’re seeing this mostly through Rick’s eyes and some of your stage direction. And it’s also largely in the dark. So you’ve got this incredibly tough scene for the viewers to deal with. And you’ve got to do it without an awful lot of tools. So how did you actually approach that scene to try to give as much as you could to us?
Greg Nicotero: The funniest thing about this episode was Andy was ecstatic because he had one line in the whole episode which was ‘Hello’ at the end. So he really didn’t have to worry about learning any dialogue at all. It was just about him descending into this place. And there’s basically three key sequences once he gets inside the prison. The first one was that sort of Steadicam shot when we’re pulling back with him and we’re on his face. And the way that it was scripted versus the way that we shot it is that he could have played out that you see him walking through the hallways chop, chop, chop, chop. But I wanted to be on his face, and we’re on his face.
And we pull back and then he goes past us, and we see him kill two walkers. Andy, his eyes and how piercing his gaze can be, especially when he gets into the mode, really is fascinating to me. I’ve wanted the audience to discover, with Rick, just the various levels that he hit. So the first one is rage, and then the next time we see him with Glenn, he’s just inconsolable. And he’s at this point where he can’t even be touched or dealt with. And so we have that moment. And getting into the boiler room, I mean the boiler room sequence for me was really important because the last time that we were there we left Carl kneeling next to his dying mother with a gun in his hand. So it was such an emotional place. And what Andy and I talked about was the way the resonance of the gunshot, that you could potentially almost still hear reverberating in the room when he walks in.
We just loved that idea that he comes in and that we visually told the story, the clothes are on the ground and the bullet is on the ground and there’s that trail of blood that’s just… we didn’t want to come upon Lori’s partially devoured corpse because that really wasn’t what the scene was about. It was finding the end result of it. One of the things we’re always conscious of on the show is if you start building up blood on the actor’s faces and dirt and sweat, by the end of the episode you don’t want them to look like Carrie so you have to be real conscious of that. But in this episode Andy, just seeing the dirt and the spatters of blood and the simulated violence that he’s put himself through to get to that dark place, the scene where he’s sitting there exhausted with the dead walker, there is a great shot.
Then the phone rings and you just bring him up and there. I just love the close up of his grimy blood-covered hand going up to his face when he says ‘Hello.’ I just got chills when we shot that sequence because Andy was so in the zone. And when he gets into it… Danai was saying earlier about sort of staying in that mode and staying in the zone, and I really fought to make sure we shot all of his sequences in one day. Because I thought getting him to that place, getting any actor to that place and then saying ‘Cut’ and then going in and having them shoot some light scene while they’re at a party or something… it was important to me to allow Andy as an actor to build into this sequence. And that’s what we ended up shooting.
Between setups, or if we would cut and then get set up to go again, I really didn’t disturb him when he was in there. Every once in a while he would look up at me just to make sure we were good. And he’s such a pro it’s unbelievable.
There are two characters that recently departed the show, Michonne’s companions. How exactly were they brought to life? It looked real… not so much like an actor when you see it on screen. How did you go about bringing that to life? And what was it like to be on set with those two traveling companions?
Greg Nicotero: What was interesting for me was coming up with the way to do those prosthetics practically so that we didn’t have to do a lot of visual effect augmentation. So that was one of the first things that we started testing when we started prepping the show. And what we did was, since walkers really don’t blink a lot and their eyes are already dead and rotted looking, we built a prosthetic that built the performers’ faces out. And we put fake eyes in those prosthetics. So when you’re looking at them, you’re not seeing the actors’ eyes. You’re seeing fake eyes because we were able to simulate the missing jaw and the pulled out teeth. So everything on their bodies is all practical and it’s all there, aside from the missing arms, which we painted blue.
So again, one of the things that I strive for as a makeup effects artist is to mix mediums. I always feel that you keep the audience guessing by throwing tricks at them every so often. So you’ll see a practical zombie face with no arms. And so by utilizing both mediums of visual effects and practical effects, I think it gives you the best results. Another perfect example is the sequence where Michonne kills the six walkers. I really love the choreography in that scene. And what was fun for me on two levels was being able to mix up CG kills and practical kills. The first four kills were digital, and then the last two kills were practical. So by mixing it up, I think it keeps the audience on their toes. Right when they think they figured out how we did it, then we do something different.
And I think that’s a really important scene for Michonne because it’s the first time you really see her smile in the whole series so far because she’s in her element. She’s relishing this moment. And with her pets it was a different kind of thing because she really had a different relationship with them.
Danai Gurira: Yes, it was interesting. I mean, they’re actors, which is kind of amazing that you forget that completely because of what the brilliant Mr. Nicotero does. So yes, Michonne’s relationship to them is very specific. And so there were times where you’re not talking in between takes, which initially was really weird. You know, to first be handed those chains these guys are attached to. At first it’s like, ‘Oh God, what have I signed up for?’ But then, getting more into Michonne, it actually makes perfect sense. And it makes perfect sense in her mind. And so it just made perfect sense to me. So yes, there’s a distance of course between her and her pets, and at the same time they’re her pets. So my relationship to them was specific in accordance to what goes on in her head.
It seems like the zombies are at a whole new level this season. And it’s really amazing to watch. Are there some new tricks thrown in this season.
Greg Nicotero: When we did T-Dog’s demise when he gets bit in the throat, we did a hand puppet, we did a whole puppet head for him. And it turned out so well that you can’t really tell. People don’t know it’s a dummy head that’s getting its throat torn out. So it’s just one of those things. The creative freedom I have on the show is unparalleled in regards to the prosthetics and the makeup effects works. Because I am a director on the show and I am an executive producer on the show, when I read the story documents and I read the scripts, I envision them and then I just build them. There’s not a lot of approval process that I have to go through with the other producers.
The producers, Glen Mazzara and Robert Kirkman, they trust my input and my visual direction in terms of the walkers. So it really gives me the ultimate creative freedom to create whatever kind of walkers and whatever walker kills we want to do. Even when you watch the first episode and you see Rick pulls the gas mask off of the walker’s face, revealing that skull underneath. Glen had pitched that gag, and I created a puppet head so that we could actually see when the gas mask comes off, it sort of sloughs all the skin off underneath. And it’s just those little moments where I get a chance to just kind of go, ‘Oh, I know what I would love to see for that.’ Like the walker that’s sitting in the room with Rick, that was a really fun moment.
And there’s one other thing I wanted to throw out real quick before I forget, which is being a fan of the genre, every once in a while I’ll throw little in-jokes out that I’ve never talked about. So, and no one even knows this, but on one of the walkers in the gladiator sequence we did is an homage to the original Dawn of the Dead. There’s a walker when the lights come on, and the second walker that you see is Fly Boy from Dawn of the Dead. We did a little in-joke, and so we had the guy with the white shirt with the torn-out throat in the brown corduroy slacks. So if you see it real quick, you’re like, ‘Oh my God!’ It’s like a celebrity in-joke cameo walker character.
And even when you watch Episode Three and you see all the heads and the tanks in The Governor’s room, one of the heads is Ben Gardner’s head from Jaws that I re-created. The head that pops out of the boat in Jaws. So one of the heads in The Governor’s tank is my little in-joke to Jaws. So I’m throwing little nods in there to Dawn of the Dead and to Jaws, all my favorite movies that really nobody else knows. And you’ll get them as you watch the show or if I talk about it and you go back and watch it go, ‘Oh my God, look; there’s Ben Gardner’ or ‘I didn’t know that’s the zombie from Dawn of the Dead’ and just those little fun things that literally geek me out.
I just directed Episode 15 and did another little in-joke. The camera operator, Mike Satrazemis, came up and said, ‘There’s some significance to this walker, isn’t there?’ And I said, ‘Well, how do you know that?’ He said, ‘Because you’ve done like three setups on it and you’ve shot it like three times. So clearly you’re loving this for some reason.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh yes, well, you know for sure.’
Can you explain why you decided to introduce Penny in the way that you did in this episode?
Greg Nicotero: Well it’s a really interesting way to get us into that character. With The Governor we’ve seen that he’s got this sort of sly manipulative way of charming Andrea. And he tries it on Michonne, but clearly it doesn’t work because she’s way too in tune for that and she’s way too smart for that. So to have an opportunity to see him in a different light by seeing the little girl and then sort of leading us into the fact that she’s a walker; the way that the scene was written and even some of the ways we shot it is that she’s actually eating a piece of flesh that we’re supposed to assume is human flesh. So we’re supposed to get the idea that they’re feeding the walkers that are in captivity before Michonne kills them and that The Governor is feeding her flesh.
You see the blood around her face and you see the blood on her hands. So we’re supposed to believe, and we will probably learn in the future episode a little bit more about that. But I just think it was a really fascinating way to get into seeing a different facet of The Governor and giving you a little snapshot into what it is that is obsessing him and driving him to do what he does.
Greg was talking about that really vulnerable moment of Michonne walking away. Considering how guarded she is when you’re playing her, can that friendship come back easily, or when she’s closed off, is she’s going to move on to the next place?
Danai Gurira: The great thing about how the show works and what I love about it is that the characters do have dimension. So I’m not going to directly answer that because that’s a spoiler. But I will say that there’s dimension. You haven’t seen all that she is. There’s a range of possibilities as to what can happen next between them because there’s dimension to who she is. But yes, she has a self-protection that is fierce and that has allowed her to survive and thrive. And it is heartbreaking for her to leave, but she has to stay true to who she is.
In terms of playing that scene with Andrea, they obviously have this long history. Michonne has kept her alive when she was sick. And in that moment you see these two women that have this bond, and one is pulling in one direction and the other doesn’t even understand why she’s not listening to her gut. How did you want to play that? And you play it so quietly, in a way that isn’t getting upset with her or yelling at her. It’s just almost this kind of simmering, ‘Why are you picking this place instead of me?’
Danai Gurira: She loves Andrea. So I think her responses to Andrea are not generally going to be explosive. But at the end of the day she’s listening to her gut. She wants this person to be with her and to stay with her. But she knows she can’t force her to because she’s not a person to get forced into anything. So there’s no point in screaming at Andrea to make her do something; she’s going to choose to do or not do. It really is Andrea’s choice. It’s painful, but it’s putting it out there, ‘You have a choice. Are you coming or not?’ It’s allowing her the choice. Michonne does not violate people’s freedoms as she feels has been happening to her. She doesn’t do that.
So there’s nothing more to do but just make the choice. I can’t make it. You make it. I can’t make it for you. You have to make the choice. And it’s heartbreaking for her because I think she can feel where Andrea’s going, that Andrea’s not going to leave with her, which she doesn’t, because Michonne has amazing instincts. She can feel things coming a little bit before they do. So she can feel it coming, but she has to present her with a simple choice and not violate her freedoms. And as painful as that is, when you love someone, you want them just to do which you want them to do. But I think she’s accepting that. ‘I have to accept who she is and what she chooses at this moment.’ And ‘I have to do what I’ve got to do at this moment.’ So there was no point in screaming at her in Michonne’s mind. That’s not how you accomplish anything in her mind. Volume accomplishes nothing in the show.
How long did it take for you to wrap yourself and get into the skin of Michonne because she’s a puzzling character? When did you feel comfortable? When did you feel at one with this character?
Danai Gurira: To me she makes sense and made sense to me even when I first auditioned for her. How she particularly was expressing her PTSD, her best story. How do you express your past through your present? To me it all did make sense. So there are definitely times where she resonates very, very loudly to me because I understand her inside. One of the things that we discussed in the writers’ room from the get-go was that she’s going to be very difficult to read sometimes. And that’s a very interesting thing. But then you realize that the writers are so smart because that is what comes across once you start playing who she is on the inside out. She is tricky to read, which they called from the get-go and I thought was very fascinating.
Talk about the choice of the emotional replacement of Carol and Lori by having Daryl and Glenn and Maggie to carry this kind of unlikely emotional weight on their shoulders. We see tenderness with Maggie and Glenn’s kiss, which is so very rare in the show. And then to have Daryl holding the baby is so unexpected and shows just how round and full these characters are that they aren’t one-note. Can you talk about the choice to portray that with these characters?
Greg Nicotero: Yes, that’s a great question. You know, the kiss was something I actually wanted them to do because we don’t see it in this world that’s devoid of life and devoid of love. When we rehearsed that scene, I felt like it was important to see that love and to see how committed these two are to each other and that they really do love each other. Especially after the fact that we just saw Maggie cut open Lori. That was really important to me so I’m really glad that you caught that. In regards to Daryl holding the baby, it’s a no-brainer. Norman [Reedus] is such a great actor and is so dedicated to the character that I love giving him that opportunity in all of my episodes. I get that opportunity to really do some great stuff with Daryl. What happens is after Episode Four he’s really put into motion. And when he sees that Rick is gone, he steps up as the leader and basically puts into motion that we’re not going to let anyone else die, not on my watch. We’ve got to keep moving forward, we’ve got to keep going.
So Daryl is really a man of emotion in this episode. And one of the things about this episode is it’s really dense. There’s so much material to talk about. There was one scene that we shot that I love that sadly didn’t make the final cut. And it was a scene where Daryl and Maggie are driving to the daycare. The road is blocked by an overturned tree, and they stop and Maggie starts to break down. And Daryl says, ‘Was she dead?’ Daryl doesn’t know what happened to Lori, and Maggie says, ‘No, she wasn’t. But I had to cut her open.’ And she starts reacting to it. Then she looks so sadly at Daryl and she says, ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry about Carol.’ And the look on his face was literally like he got punched in the stomach. And he just said, ‘You know, that baby gave her so much hope.’
So Carol’s death really pushes Daryl forward, and unfortunately it’s not in the episode but hopefully it’ll be on the DVD because it’s a great scene that those two actors did a really good job with. But I really believe that will push our story forward by showing Maggie’s reaction to Lori’s death plus Daryl saying we have to survive. We’ve lost one third of our group in one day. But what’s important is that we keep this group together and we survive. And if Rick can’t do it right now, which clearly he can’t, it puts Daryl into motion. So when they come back to the prison and they’re feeding the baby, it really feels just natural for him to come in and grab the baby. And I love that scene. And literally I imagined every female fan of Daryl Dixon is just wobbly in their knees. Yes, melting, when he picks up that baby and starts coddling her.
And then to go from there to having him walk out to the grave. It’s so powerful. I was really adamant about shooting that scene with him at the grave in the morning with the sun directly behind him and this beautiful sunrise shot because it’s the dawn of a new day. And he’s not only succeeded in his mission, but now he’s celebrating the people that they lost because they haven’t had 10 seconds to stop and go, ‘Oh my God, what just happened?’ It’s like all of a sudden as soon as they realized that the baby is there, they have to go into motion to protect the baby because that signifies future and our group surviving and moving forward. So there’s a lot of weight to that. So having Daryl hold the baby and having Maggie and Glenn kiss, those are moments that signify that in the darkest hour there is still light–there’s still light that will push us forward.
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