We're back with the second part of our interview call with Robert Kirkman and David Morrissey to discuss the third episode of The Walking Dead Season 3. In this part of the feature, they talk about Milton, the comic book being brought to life, the chance of David Morrissey directing an episode, and Marvel Zombies:
What can you tell us about Milton? Will we see more of him experimenting on the zombies?
Robert Kirkman: Oh absolutely. Milton is a really interesting character for us because he's not necessarily a scientist, but he is a very intelligent individual. He's looking around at this world and saying “You know, wait a minute, this is a problem that is not going away. Let’s do our due diligence to try and figure out a little bit more about these things and possibly better ways of handling them.”
He's come up with a lot of theories and as the season progresses, we’re going to get to see a lot more of him. We'll also see some things that he’s come up with to try and help them survive and cope in this world. I’m really looking forward to everybody seeing that stuff.
We got to see the aquarium at the end of the episode, which was exciting for comic book fans. How was it for you to see something you created like that being brought to life?
Robert Kirkman: This is a question I get asked a lot and it’s extremely hard to answer because I don’t really have any frame of reference for how to describe it. All I can really say is that it’s completely indescribable.
It's very strange to think that Charlie Adlard drew those fish tanks I wrote in the comic book eight years ago and now they are coming to life and three dimensional. We were just having fun, making a comic book, and we never thought that it would spiral into this.
It is sometimes strange to be on set surrounded by people dressed up like characters that you’ve been writing for years and walking through the prison. I wish more people could experience it so that they could tell me how to describe it.
Can you talk more about why we saw The Governor kill the National Guard without hesitation?
David Morrissey: You’ll get into the psychological makeup of him quite deeply as we go along. It's probably not a good idea to have a gang of soldiers coming into your community when you’re the person who wants to run it. I think that’s a very logical thing for him.
What he's created there in that town is very idyllic. It runs right through him, it’s about him, and people are very grateful for him. It's a delicate balance that he’s creating there and he wants to choose the people who come in and the people who go out. He doesn’t want anybody else making those decisions for him.
David, you've directed projects in the past. Would you be interested in directing an episode of The Walking Dead?
David Morrissey: I would make the tea in order to be on The Walking Dead set, so whatever they wanted me to be I would be. I just want to be part of this experience in any way I can. So yes, directing it or making the coffee, drive the trucks... The show is a real trip to be on and I’m loving every part of it.
Not all of the characters in the TV series match the comics, including The Governor. Can you tell us about going with actors who fit the part over those who look the part?
Robert Kirkman: Well, I was wholeheartedly supporting the idea of getting David Morrissey to have plastic surgery so that he would look more like the comic strip, but he was oddly extremely against it, so that was frustrating. The visual of The Governor isn’t necessarily the most important aspect of him. To force an actor to have a certain kind of look only to match it to a comic book is not the kind of thing we would do.
The fact that we do have characters in the show that look remarkably like they did in the comic is more of an accident really. In the effort to find the best actors for the roles, we just really kind of stumbled across people that fit the image of the comics. We cast David because of his talent, not because of specific looks. He’s a handsome guy though... don’t get me wrong.
With the success of The Walking Dead and Marvel films, has there been talk of you coming to work on a Marvel Zombies movie or game project of any kind?
Robert Kirkman: No, not at all. I don’t know that there are any plans to do that, but if there are, I certainly haven’t heard from them. That's a Marvel project controlled by Marvel and I’d certainly love to see something like that happen. It would be pretty cool, but I don’t know what level of involvement I would have in it, if any.
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Looking for more coverage of The Walking Dead? Our recent coverage links are below and we'll have an early review of episode 3.04 tomorrow.
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