Fans of The Walking Dead were treated to a closer look at the newest spinoff in the ever-expanding TWD Universe during WonderCon, The Walking Dead: Dead City. Coming to AMC on June 18, the new show is the next chapter in Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) and Negan's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) journey.
Maggie and Negan's lives were tied together in the worst of ways after the leader of the Saviors killed her husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun), at the start of season 7. Maggie will never forget — or forgive — what he did, but she also recognizes that he saved her son's life. In Dead City, when her son is kidnapped by some very bad people, Negan is the one she turns to for help.
The Walking Dead: Dead City joins a growing, interconnected universe of TWD spinoffs full of daring heroes trying to survive in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world full of the undead. In addition to Fear the Walking Dead, heading into its eighth and final season, World Beyond and Tales of the Walking Dead, Dead City is the first of three new spinoffs coming to the TWD Universe, alongside The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and an as-yet untitled Rick and Michonne spinoff slated for 2024. The franchise’s first spinoff.
What to Watch spoke exclusively with Lauren Cohan, TWD newcomer Gaius Charles and Dead City showrunner Eli Jorné about the new series at WonderCon.
What to Watch: I have to ask what all of this is like for you. The Walking Dead has been part of the culture for so long, and here we are after all these years and it's as fresh as ever, it's as exciting as ever. That's got to be really fun knowing that there are so many people who are excited about Dead City.
Lauren Cohan: I think what's really exciting about it is that there's still so much more story to tell, as our three new spinoffs are testament to. What piqued my interest since we talked about doing the spinoff and since Eli came on board was that we had this idea of taking two characters you know and looking at them through a different lens and a different landscape. That's something that Jeff and I are both super excited about. I think that excitement will translate to fans.
It's definitely pretty cool to do the reverse, taking the big landscape [of The Walking Dead] down to the concentrated perspective. But it's a feat to be going for more years than you go to school. I mean, there are people who have literally grown up with The Walking Dead. I meet fans who are 20 and they're like, "oh, I started and was this age or whatever."
Eli Jorné: If they're 20 now, they should not have been watching!
Cohan: That's what I want to say! I'm like, where are your parents?
Jorné: Sometimes my kids would walk in when I'd be watching The Walking Dead and they'd hide under the couch.
Cohan: To sneak a peek?
Jorné: Yeah, to see the zombies eating people alive.
Cohan: Were they scared of it?
Jorné: I wish they were more scared. I think that's the scariest thing, that they're not scared.
Cohan: That's the weird thing with kids. I think they haven't thought about real fear in life enough to know that it shouldn't be entertaining. It should be really chilling.
Jorné: What's cool is that I didn't start working on [The Walking Dead] until the 10th season and it was just this juggernaut of a show that had been on for so long and it was exciting enough to be working on it. And then to be creating a new story, telling a new story in a new place, new location like New York City with the characters that I'd been watching for years and felt people connected to. It was so cool to me, like standing on the shoulders of giants.
Gaius Charles: I got to binge watch the first bunch of seasons and got to fall in love with certain characters, but then I had to forget all those characters because my character doesn't know those people. So I'm like a fan inside, working with everyone. But I also get to explore this world as an actor where I get to know and discover at the same time.
Jorné: (Laughing) Well there was a day when he went around with a poster and got all the actors' autographs…. No, I’m just kidding. Do you know Gaius' character?
What to Watch: No, only what they've told us so far, which isn't much.
Charles: So I play Armstrong, who is a New Babylon marshall. In this world they're like a federation of states. It's like we're trying to put the world back together, essentially. My state, New Babylon, is one of the main states in the federation and we're the law and order state. So one of my [character's] things is to apply justice, wherever it needs to be applied. And that chiefly translates into getting Negan.
I think a lot of fans still feel some type of way about Negan. (Laughs) One of my jobs is to bring justice to that storyline and I try to do that. And complications ensue.
Cohan: Very well put.
Jorné: That was my pitch to the network: "complications ensue."
Cohan: We should've just called the show that!
What to Watch: New spinoff!
Cohan: Yeah!
What to Watch: Lauren, you play a character who's been established in the canon, so everything she does is in TWD canon to a certain extent, and Gaius, your character is completely new and you get to create everything. What's it like navigating a new show as a canon character in a new world and as a new character in a new world?
Cohan: It was really fun because it started with Eli having a story he really wanted to tell in this world that helped us to say, "What are all the little indicators we can create for people to say it's familiar but it's different, or it's a different way of looking at it, or it's just a more intimate conversation with the mindset of these [characters]."
It comes down to the costumes, the color palette of the show, the mindset of trying to say to yourself that we've had time jumps in The Walking Dead. But I feel like what we really got to do in Dead City was to say this is a time jump, but let's also try and make an emotional jump in the emotional palette of the story.
Charles: It was a real gift and blessing for me because I get to make it my own. I feel like if I was on the show for such a long time, like Lauren and Jeffrey, it would be a balancing act between that experience. But obviously I know the DNA of the show but I get to sort of discover it and make it my own and really play it.
Cohan (to Charles): I always forget that you're not a comic book character. You're not playing someone that's already been on a page. I think the thing that's been really rewarding in The Walking Dead Universe since we started this whole thing is how you take something that is a comic but keep the emotions and the relationships very grounded. And I think we've intensified that even greater in this show. So that's been exciting.
Jorné: From the outside watching them perform and watching them fall into these characters, just as Gaius was saying, it's exciting to build a new character on the page and then watch someone elevate it that much more with all the extra stuff they bring to it. (To Charles) Even in your audition, you just pop to life.
With Lauren, it's like you think after 11 seasons, what more can you do with Maggie? And for me, that was a challenge. I was really excited about with [Maggie and Negan] and how do you create all these new layers without destroying the amazing foundation for the characters? But you're building on it and finding new nooks and crannies. Hopefully I created these little opportunities and these doors that Lauren got to walk through and transform the character, to build on the character, and elevate it.
Cohan: And that's what it looked like to me from reading the scripts. We had opportunities to say, despite all of the things that are necessary to survive in this world, what are your own inner demons? We had an opportunity to use the relationship that Maggie and Negan have to reflect and sort of [examine] that aspect of it.
The scariest emotions are actually the quietest ones. And I think that's what happens in this show. There was torment in The Walking Dead. People know what happens to my character and the dark places she goes to, like when she hangs Gregory. But I feel like some of those unwilling slivers are what we got to tunnel into here and it was so gratifying. And then Gaius came to the table already in that space and it's really fun to have an actor like [Gaius] and a story like this. [The audience] will see it. It's going to be so exciting!
Charles: I think so much of The Walking Dead has been about how to survive. And we're still in that survival mode, but it's also like how do you rebuild? And that was really interesting. Especially coming out of COVID and all of our experiences with that and it's like now we're sort of over it, so what's the world going to be like? And so for us, after 11 seasons, how do we rebuild? How do we stabilize and maybe find a way to thrive? Maybe not, I don't know. But that, to me, was pretty exciting.
Cohan: Because it's a choice. There's a sense of choosing something. Like with the New Babylon Federation, Maggie and Negan come up against the philosophy of Gaius' people and those characters. It's almost a luxury, and a space we have not always inhabited when you're on the run.
Charles: We try to do all of that and then in one moment it can all break and fall apart and go crazy. That's the excitement of watching the show.
What to Watch: Knowing everything that comes from The Walking Dead Universe, what were the things that you felt needed to be in this story to make it an authentic TWD story?
Jorné: Well, I'll start first with what's not like Walking Dead [about Dead City], because I think a huge component of the show is all the stuff that's not Walking Dead. We're in an urban landscape — New York City — and the show's never gone to that place, you know? I mean, we've seen Atlanta but you haven't really been in a city that has skyscrapers everywhere, and all of these iconic landmarks we all know so well. And it's an island, and a million and a half walkers are crowded in the streets. It's a nightmare hellstorm you haven't seen before in the show. And thrusting these characters with all their baggage into that place…. It just feels really new and exciting and fun, you know?
So that's all new, and I think the things [from the TWD Universe] that are really important are the walkers. You don't want to get away from the bread and butter and the fun of the show. And Maggie and Negan have this history that's so rich you want to build on it. So I think for anybody who's been a fan of the show for this long, coming to Dead City you're just going to go deeper and deeper into what their relationship is all about, and all that trauma and all that grief. How do you overcome something like that? Have they really [overcome it]? And they're navigating it all in the midst of this giant playground.
Cohan: The trauma playground.
Jorné: The trauma playground!
Charles: Oh, that's good!
Jorné: That's our new title!
What to Watch: That's your hashtag right there.
Jorné: Trauma playground, the place you all want to go. Forget Disneyland. Trauma playground.
Cohan: The lines are much shorter!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
