Are you afraid of the future? Gale Anne Hurd might be to blame. The legendary producer is responsible for some of the the most enduring visions of the future on the silver screen, from The Terminator to Aliens. She’s also one of the creative forces behind one of the most popular and influential shows on television, The Walking Dead.
Hurd was in New York City this weekend to kick off The Walking Dead’s fifth season with appearances with the show’s cast and creators at New York Comic Con and PaleyFest at the Paley Center for Media. Still in the middle of the show’s production crunch, Hurd took some time out to discuss the season premiere (without spoilers), the connection between the show and the comic book, the hard job of killing off characters, and the reason behind the show’s appeal.
In the second part of the interview, which will run after the premiere airs, Hurd will discuss the themes of Season 5, the unusual bond among the cast members, and the three questions she’d ask someone who wanted to join theWalking Dead family.
Why start out this season with a cliffhanger?
When you’re going into your fifth season you don’t want to keep doing the same thing over and over again. You want to do something you haven’t done before.
We knew what the Terminus story line was going to be and Scott Gimple, our showrunner, said “I think it would be great to do the cliffhanger and pick up immediately thereafter.” We’ve always ended the season and picked up weeks or months later.
There’s a lot of anticipation for what’s going to happen next, but it’s not only dread.
It was important to end on the note of Rick’s Journey. Rick has “re-accepted” the mantle of leadership. He has the conviction that even though they’re in the direst of straits, it’s the Terminants that have to worry: “They’re screwing with the wrong people.”
The Walking Dead has always been Rick’s story.
Rick has gone through the most gyrations as a character. We see this new world through his eyes. We always have, since that first episode. He’s been the guy that’s held on longest to the values of the Old World, the idea of truth and justice and doing the right thing.
But from there he kind of swung to both extremes
When he saw what was doing to his family, he over-corrected. He became Rick the Vengeful. Old Testament Rick.
Then he saw what that was doing to his son. It seems that Carl killed another young man in cold blood and felt no guilt over it. That’s what turned him into Farmer Rick, eschewing violence totally. And that didn’t work out so well for him either.
So where is Rick’s head at now in Season 5?
Now he’s basically said “I understand the rules of the New World. You have to do just about anything to survive. If there’s no other choice, and it’s you or me, I’ll do whatever it takes, including tearing someone’s throat out with my teeth.”
More than ever, The Walking Dead isn’t about the walkers, it’s about the humans.
What the show enables us to do, which the comic book does so beautifully, is show how different groups of people survive the Zombie Apocalypse. The values they embrace and the things they are willing or unwilling to do. It’s not really the zombies you need to fear, it’s the other human survivors.
But it can also be an opportunity to create something.
Left to Rick and the late Hershel, the prison was one of the best places to be in the Zombie Apocalypse, because there was a democracy. People were protected. There wasn’t even a benevolent despot. There was no despot at all.
On the other hand, we saw The Governor trying to take on a new persona, trying to start over, trying not to become the same Monster. But he couldn’t. Now we see a new group at Terminus and what strategies they have adopted to survive. Is it Sanctuary for All? Probably not.
It must be pretty cool to have the rich raw material from the text of the comic books but not be beholden to it like Game of Thrones. You’re not having to say to Robert Kirkman, “Hurry up and write.”
We change it up. Even when we take a particular panel from the comic and bring it to life, there’s gong to be a twist.
That’s what ‘s so great about collaborating with [comic book auteur] Robert [Kirkman.] He’s the one who’s pushing. He’s the one who’s saying “I’ve already done it this way once”
He wants to see what would happen if different choices were made, if situations happened to different characters.
It’s essentially been mandated from the beginning. Daryl is such a significant character in the television show and he’s not even a character in the comic books. That’s a game changer right there. Andrea’s still alive in the comic books. That allows us to take a lot of detours.
Even fans of the comic books don’t know what’s coming.
One of my favorite episodes is “The Grove,” the one with Carol, Tyreese, Mika, Lizzie and Baby Judith.
It’s a fantastic story, one of Roberts favorites because of how it illuminates character. That episode was planned from the very beginning of Season 4. It was the conclusion of the Carol-Tyreese conflict. Is he going to kill her? Or do the most remarkable thing, which is to forgive her?. At one point we thought about whether that should be the season finale. And we went no, no, no, that’s a thread, but we need to kick it up a notch for the finale.
That was a truly amazing episode.
Kudos to AMC for letting us go there. It’s not just to shock people, but to really make them think and make them feel. That episode was done by a first-time director Mike Satrazemis.
He’s part of The Walking Dead family. People throw that term around, but it’s a show where everyone on it wants everyone else to succeed. Mike was a camera operator for Robert Altman. Those performances from the little girls? They’re not easy performances to get. You don’t just turn on the camera and say “action.”
How hard is it to kill off a character?
It is a world where we would be dishonest to ourselves and dishonest to the viewers if people didn’t meet their end from time to time. If there are life or death stakes there has to be death. And it can’t always be ancillary characters. We don’t do it to shock.
It’s to see what the dangers are in the world, like the infection, we had in the prison. And to see how people react. Carol thought she was doing the right thing, but she was still still killing people. It also shows the dangers of becoming too complacent. In other cases killing a character becomes a catalyst. Andrea’s sacrificed herself to save them. Michonne really changed after Andrea died. She carries that flame.
What is it about The Walking Dead that people with connect with?
The reason the audience has grown is that people care so deeply they want to be able to share it with friends and family. They have to convince them to watch the show because they want to talk about what they think about the moral choices that are made. It may not be life or death, but every day we’re making our own moral choices and people should discuss them more.
You’ve been on board since the very beginning. Did you anticipate the success of this show?
Absolutely no way. It’s happened twice in my career, with The Terminator and now with The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead was passed on by almost every network in town. They all had the opportunity to pull up the pickup truck and unload the money that AMC must be making. But their perception was that it was a little niche show, a sub-genre of horror, a small slice of the audience.
What they didn’t realize, because they hadn’t read the comic books, is that the show isn’t about the zombies. It’s about the survivors. It’s about the question: Who would you be if this happened to you?
What are you hoping for in the Season 5 Premiere of The Walking Dead? Who would you be in the Zombie Apocalypse? Share your thoughts in the comment below.
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