Gale Anne Hurd, one of the executive producers of the popular show The Walking Dead, was in Edinburg International TV Festival in Scotland to talk about the show’s upcoming new season. She also discussed how their new cast member Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays villain Negan, is going to be the new “gamechanger” for the seventh season.
The Walking Dead Season six finale cliffhanger which left fans flabbergasted after the show’s new villain Negan threatened to kill one of the main characters with his baseball bat that was wrapped in barbed wire. When Hurd continued to get overwhelmed with the festival crowd who kept asking for spoilers in the new season, she replied that the show promises that they will be picking up right where they left off in the season finale. She also promised not to drag out the season seven premiere episode and that the first episode will define the rest of the new season.
The executive producer was accompanied by the Michael Cudlitz, who plays Sargent Abraham Ford that was introduced in the show’s fourth season. He commented about his thoughts on the season six finale, calling the episode intense. He also said that the show has especially been intense for his new co-worker Jeffery Dead Morgan who just came off of filming on The Good Wife to attend the last episode of The Walking Dead. He also laughed about how Morgan had to deliver almost thirteen pages of dialogue during his first day on the show’s set and did well.
Cudlitz also talked to the festival fans about the filming conditions for the season six finale, commenting that the weather was physically hard to endure for all the actors. He continued to say that most of the actors, like him, were on their knees for over eight hours during the wintertime in Georgia.
Near the end of the Walking Dead presentation, Cudlitz and Hurd talked about the origins of the popular horror show, saying that originally the creators presented the show’s first script to NBC. Reportedly Hurd said that NBC representatives asked why there needed to be zombies on the show. Hurd said her and the show’s fellow creators were flabbergasted that NBC wanted them to transform their show into a criminal procedural show where two main characters would solve a zombie crime every week.
Her last comment transitioned back to why the show was so influential to her and fans all over the world, stating that the show is not about zombies, but about humans. What intrigued her about Robert Kirkman’s comic book series the show is based on, Hurd said, was the fact the main characters had to deal with zombies and other humans as the biggest threat in the series.
