Exclusive Interview with The Walking Dead’s Dallas Roberts (Milton)

2013/08/29 22:35:31 +00:00 | Jonathan James

With The Walking Dead Season 3 making its way to Blu-ray and DVD this week, I was given the opportunity to catch up with Dallas Roberts to talk about his time on the Woodbury set. We started by discussing the development of this new character and covered events that took place all season, including the finale.

*Spoiler Warning: Don't read this interview if you haven't finished all of The Walking Dead Season 3.

With Milton being a new character that wasn’t from the comic book series, how much input did you have on the character’s look and mannerisms?

Dallas Roberts: In terms of the look, I was shockingly uninvolved in that. I went into the makeup trailer on the first day, saying that he looks like an old world scientist with a lab coat and shocked hair up top, and they said: “Nope... not that.” [Laughs]They are obviously doing larger structural work there with the visual quality of Woodbury versus the original group.

In terms of his mannerisms and demeanor, I was able to take a lot of liberty there. I found that his loyalty and simplicity really rang out pretty quickly. Something in that spoke to me. In terms of inspiration, it was probably animals or friends of mine. I have a buddy that has a sense of complete investment in a relationship. Milton tends to give that up really quickly. He get’s completely invested or not invested at all and that was fun to play with.

You did a great job of making Milton feel like a real person within that world. He had a more realistic reaction to the world around him and wasn’t necessarily in control of a group like The Governor or Rick.

Dallas Roberts: Absolutely. That’s the fun part to play. I like the guys on the edge, who you can imagine are doing things you don’t see. It’s a real pleasure to hear you say that. If he arrived in some kind of 3-dimensional form, it makes me feel like I’m doing what I should be doing.

With most of your time spent on the Woodbury set, did you have a lot of interaction with Rick’s group until those last few episodes?

Dallas Roberts: The setup is so locked down, in terms of secrecy, that I wouldn’t know what they were doing when I wasn’t there. The first time Woodburry comes face-to-face with the group, when Rick and Maggie come in and shoot up the joint near the walker pit, was literally the first time I met them. That was seven or eight episodes in and it was fun. With the segregated storylines, it was kind of like we were making our own TV show for a while.

Once the groups begin to interact in the later episodes, there were hints that Milton could switch sides and join the prison group. Did you know how limited Milton’s time on the series would be?

Dallas Roberts: I knew that there were two endgames, assuming that Rick and The Governor would go to war at the end of Season 3: One where Milton gets taken out and another where he escapes to the confines of the prison. When Scott Wilson and I worked together, those smaller scenes in the middle of the treaty negotiations were so fun to play as an actor. I did think, momentarily, that I could see a future in that for Milton and that he could find a sort of function there. My prevailing sense was that he needed to go through sacrifice to be redeemed and that’s what happened… in a rather dramatic fashion.

With you spending so much time in Woodbury away from the prison group, I’d imagine you spent quite a bit of time on and off set with David Morrissey and Laurie Holden. Can you tell me about your time with the two of them?

Dallas Roberts: They were great. It’s hot out there in Atlanta and there are long days with these intense scenes. We found a rhythm with each other really quickly and we just had a ball working with each other. David Morrissey is a dream to work with and that relationship we were able to find was so fun. We could talk about British television shows and music together, and a real bond came out of that. Laurie was a treat to work with as well. The storylines tend to be grim and there aren’t chances for levity, but, off-screen, there was a ton of it.

Looking back at your time on the Season 3 set, what’s something you’ll always remember?

Dallas Roberts: The first time I left Woodbury and had to deal with a walker in the wild. That scene felt to me like what I was expecting when I took a gig on The Walking Dead. I thought there was going to be a lot of cutting people open and machetes, and Woodbury wasn’t that at all. It was fun to go out there and get my hands dirty.

Your hands got a little dirtier at the end of the season when Milton becomes a walker. Can you tell me about the walker makeup process?

Dallas Roberts: I was fortunate in terms of makeup time, because Milton had just died of unnatural causes. He wasn’t someone who had been out as a walker for six months. It was basically me, with a little bit of prosthetics and a lot of layers of makeup to create that work. It probably took an hour and a half to put the makeup on and it usually takes twenty minutes, so it wasn’t that much longer.

The contact lenses were awful in terms of getting them in. After they were in, I was having a ball, but I had never had contacts before. I discovered that my body has a bizarre reaction to putting in contact lenses: I almost vomited getting them in. What an odd thing for my lizard brain to have as its reaction to being assaulted in the eye. Just vomit on someone? It’s a bizarre defense mechanism.

They limit your view in a way. It’s almost like viewing through a telescope and people look at you and say you’re weird. Once I got them in, Greg Nicotero couldn’t get them out, because I wanted to keep them in. [Laughs]

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The Walking Dead Season 3 is now available on Blu-ray and DVD in the US. For more details, visit: