‘The Walking Dead’ Spoilers: What Was It About The Speech That Made Andrew Lincoln Cry?

Warning: the following contains spoilers about the most recent episode of The Walking Dead.

Back in December, Andrew Lincoln told Entertainment Weekly that playing Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead has really tested his range of emotions as an actor. Another thing he did was praise episodes 9 and 10 of the current season, which had not yet aired at the time.

“I just go, ‘I can’t believe I get to do this job for a living. It’s the coolest job.’ And certainly it’s worth saying that episode nine is one of the great episodes we’ve ever done. And 10 is the episode I always wanted to make.”

Now that it has aired, Entertainment Weekly conducted another interview with Lincoln, so he could explain what he meant by that last part. In the most recent episode, titled “Them,” Rick gives a speech about how he and the others “are the walking dead.” And when it came to reading that speech, something about it reminded Lincoln of an event from his past.

“When I read it, it reminded me of something that happened in my life when I spoke to someone in a fight. It almost had the same speech, so it resonated on a really, really profoundly, deep, familial level. I remember when I read it, I just cried. When I read the script I couldn’t … because I always to tend to read my words out loud and I just couldn’t. I got something caught in my throat when I read this speech. It’s just a very bold episode and I hope we got it right.”

During the interview, Lincoln also mentioned that he is a fan of Cormac McCarthy. Before the first season of The Walking Dead began filming, one of the novels he read as preparation was The Road.

“I just thought that is a modern parable. I mean that’s what it is: It’s a kind of classic parable and that’s the closest thing I can equate it to. I think there’s a simplicity, a directness, and a poetry in that book. Certainly the script had it and I hope we’ve managed to capture that in episode 10.”

Another thing about the latest Walking Dead episode is that fans were introduced to a new character. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Ross Marquand plays a character named Aaron – who is a recruiter for the Alexandra Safe-Zone community. At this point, it’s uncertain how big of a role Aaron will have in the Walking Dead television series. But there is a possibility that this introduction could mean the arrival of the Saviors, a story arc that fans of the comics have been waiting to see adapted.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

[Image credit: AMC via Collider]