‘Walking Dead’ Season 7: Cast, Crew On ‘Most Emotional’ Premiere Ever [SPOILERS]
Warning: This article contains potential The Walking Dead Season 7 spoilers.
When The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere airs later this month, anxious viewers will finally learn who Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) killed with his barbed-wire bat Lucille. While the scene may be gut-wrenching to fans, Greg Nicotero — the director of the much-anticipated episode — tells Entertainment Weekly the scene was even worse to film.
“Well, I can tell you from the position of the director’s chair, it was by far the most emotional episode that I’ve ever shot. Where we left these characters at the end of Season 6 is, they’ve been broken. Their world has literally become smaller and smaller and trapped them, and now they’re in a situation that they’ve never been in before where the cavalry is not coming over the hill. Carol is not going to show up and blow up the propane tank outside of Terminus. These things aren’t going to happen, and it’s just devastating.”
Nicotero says the Walking Dead cast “took themselves to some pretty deep, dark places, and it was intense. It was uncomfortable, and it was raw, and the emotion was real.”
The director also promises that The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere will go further than the comic book’s version of the scene and will show the horror from the victim’s point of view.
“There’s some great drama that stems from that exact moment. Without giving too much away, it’s even more than the comic book, because the comic book is kind of abrupt, and it’s over, and there’s a little, ‘Okay, I’ll see you guys in a week. We’ll be by to get half our share.’ There’s more to it.”
As if that doesn’t sound ominous enough, Andrew Lincoln (Rick) and Norman Reedus (Daryl) tell Scream some of their own chilling Walking Dead Season 7 spoilers.
Lincoln says shooting Season 7 has been so brutal he’s amazed “that my boots are still attached to my feet.”
The British actor says it was especially hard for the show’s cast to reconvene from hiatus to film the conclusion of the Season 6 cliffhanger with Negan.
“I didn’t fully take on board how hard it was going to be until the read through, and then it was…We’re going to have to do this…We’re going to have to do this episode. It’s one thing reading the script. Then there’s actually having to do it. You get a sense of the summit you have to climb.”
Lincoln believes Negan is the “greatest villain of the series,” far surpassing the Governor in his evil deeds. Even worse, Negan does it with charm and logic. Still, Lincoln assures fans that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is an “amazing” addition to the cast who makes “great choices.”
Meanwhile, Reedus explains the mindset of the characters as they kneel before Negan at the beginning of Walking Dead Season 7.
“They realize they are not driving the car,” he says. “There is somebody else who has a lot more territory than they do who is calling the shots. It’s super interesting and great that there is a character that is going to put fear into them. One of my favorite parts of the Season 6 finale is watching Rick be not in control. Rick has led these people for so long, and he might have just led them all into the water to drown.”
And what is going through Daryl’s head during the terrifying sequence?
“Mistakes will end your life,” says Reedus, before cryptically adding the future of the group looks “really bad.”
What do you think of the latest Walking Dead Season 7 spoilers? Who do you think Negan will kill in the season premiere?
The Walking Dead Season 7 returns to AMC on Oct. 23 at 9 p.m. ET.
[Featured image by AMC]
