The Walking Dead director on that Rick–Negan fire brawl

Rick and Negan finally battled face-to-face on Sunday’s “The Key” episode of The Walking Dead. And not just face-to-face, but face-to-face-to-fire. Flaming zombies and a blazing Lucille added some extra heat to their basement brawl, but how exactly did they stage that dangerous scene? And what does it all mean?

We went to executive producer Greg Nicotero, who directed the episode, to get all the behind-the-scenes intel on the big confrontation. And that’s not all. We also asked about Dwight’s big decision and the mysterious new stranger with the records obsession (but no spoken word!). Click through both pages to read the entire interview and also make sure to check out our Q&A with Jayne Atkinson, who played that mysterious new stranger, Georgie.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Rick and Daryl have been fighting the Saviors together all season, but they really haven’t been on the same page at all, including that big brawl they had, so tell me about the importance of this scene between them in the Hilltop graveyard where they come clean about their mistakes.
GREG NICOTERO: The interesting thing about it is they haven’t had an opportunity to even have a conversation, and given the fact that they had that brawl in episode 4, it was really important that we get a sense that we see where they are with each other. I thought it was a great moment for Daryl to come over and just say to Rick, “Listen, I’m with you. Whatever you need me to do, I’m here to do it. We want this war to be over.”

It’s important to see these two guys on the same page again. They both want the war over, they both want Negan dead. That’s all there is to it. It’s a really great sequence and we talked a lot about exactly how we wanted to portray that moment because up to that point, they weren’t on the same page, so even in the shots, you can see that I have Rick on one side of the frame and Daryl on the other side of the frame, with the grave markers breaking up the frame so that we’re visually trying to separate the two of them. Then, once they start talking, you realize that they are actually both fighting for the same thing. Listen, Carl just died. It’s the first chance for Daryl to even acknowledge that with Rick on a one-to-one basis.

Let’s get into the big Rick vs. Negan battle. We’ll talk about some of the actual physical things you had to do to pull this off in a second, but what was the importance of this face-to-face in terms of story and the characters?
We’re definitely building some momentum, and in this particular episode, they established that the Hilltop has lookouts spaced every mile or two apart, and they’re setting up a perimeter around the Hilltop. And the idea is as soon as one person sees something, they’ll sound a horn and alert everybody else to the fact that the Saviors are coming. Rick chooses to go on lookout and he sees Negan, and basically instead of alerting everyone else, he’s taking terms into his own hands.

He’s going rogue!
He’s going rogue. Part of the best thing and the worst thing about these people is they can never stick to a plan because there’s so much emotion and so much power behind everything that’s at stake, and so Rick goes rogue. Instead of signaling the horn, he’s taking matters into his own hands. He drives down, he knocks Negan’s car out of the convoy and basically tries to kill him.

Not only do they finally end up in a basement surrounded by flaming walkers, but a flaming Lucille as well. How did you pull all of that off?
Some of the Lucille fire stuff, we coated the bats with a special material. We’re able to physically light it on fire. When, for a few shots, we had to make contact with the bat, we had a bat that basically had an orange glow stick as part of it so that we can get the interactive light. We wanted to stay close and we wanted it to be disorienting.

And you hear their voices as they’re talking to each other, and Negan’s not worried. Negan doesn’t for a split second worry that the sound of his voice is going to attract Rick because Negan really does believe that his friends are coming and that he has the upper hand. It’s only when Rick tells him about the Heaps, that he realizes that Simon has gone rogue, as well, and killed everybody on the Heaps that Negan starts realizing, Uh-oh, I think I might be in a little bit of trouble here.

There was a lot of choreography here in this fight scene. I think my favorite part was Rick sliding under a flaming bat swing. How did you all map this out and execute it?
I was very involved with Jeff Schoen, our production designer, in terms of building the room in a very specific way. One of the things that was really important to me was that I wanted the room to catch on fire. I didn’t want it to just be a couple zombies with flames on them because we had done that before. So what was important to me was that once these walkers are on the ground and Rick hits the one in the stomach and it falls on top of the pile and it stands up, it’s engulfed in flames, and another zombie’s engulfed in flames.

As they’re bumping into furniture in the room, part of the room is now catching on fire, and that was something that I fought for to keep in the script. We built the room in a very specific way so that they burst through the door, and once they start swinging that bat, they’re basically sort of do-si-doing around this one center post — because we wanted zombies to be able to come out of the darkness and grab at Negan and grab at Rick so that the only illumination in the room is the illumination from the bat.

Yeah, there was a lot of contrast between the light of the fire and the pitch black darkness in the background.
It was a great opportunity for us to have zombies coming out of the darkness, seeing these zombies on fire, and still having these two characters fighting. A day or two before we shot that scene, I went in with just me and Andy [Lincoln] and Jeffrey [Dean Morgan], blocked out what I wanted, and talked them through it, and then we walked through the motions. I said we should duck here, swing the bat here, and then you duck down and then the bat comes this way.

Then, the day that we shot it, we brought our stunt coordinator in and a lot of the department heads and we walked through all the choreography. I had to shoot that entire sequence in about three-quarters of a day, so I needed everybody to know what we were doing. Plus, we had to shoot one section of the room where we had one of the walls removed in case there was any issues with fire, so we wanted to make sure that we were as safe as we could.

That particular sequence was really the most in-depth in terms of action. Even with the car stuff, we didn’t really want the car chase to be a super action car chase because we had done that already earlier in the season when Rick and Daryl are chasing the guys that leave the chemical plant. We didn’t want to do the same thing over again, so we really focused our efforts in this great cat-and-mouse sequence in the basement of that building.

NEXT PAGE: Intel on Dwight’s big decision and the enigmatic Georgie

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We know Simon has been chafing under Negan’s rules and has been looking to do things his own way, but what do you make of Dwight’s role and reaction here, because Simon puts him in a very tricky spot of basically advocating -— or at least agreeing — for mutiny.
GREG NICOTERO: Simon’s a really smart guy. He’s testing the waters to see even how much of this plan that he’s sort of hatching is possible, but unfortunately for Dwight, Dwight takes the bait. Whether it’s because Dwight really does want to find a way for these guys to resolve the conflict, he falls into Simon’s trap. So he’s thinking as they’re walking, Maybe Simon’s being honest and maybe he really does want to just walk away from his whole conflict, cut our losses, and everybody goes their own direction.

He’s really selling that and he’s selling it hard, and it doesn’t even become apparent to Dwight until the very last sequence when he realizes that that’s not what Simon was saying, that Simon basically got him onboard so that they can now go in, and as Simon says, expunge them. Now he realizes that they’re in trouble because the whole point was that Dwight was trying to find a way to minimize this battle and this war, and now Simon’s just taken it to a whole new level.

What can you say about these mysterious new strangers — Georgie, Hilda, and Midge — who show up offering a key to the future in exchange for food and records?
A key to the future. Crazy, right? First of all, I love Lauren Cohan, I love Christian Serratos, and I love Katelyn Nacon in this storyline because everybody has a very different viewpoint as to how they’re going to move forward. When they meet Georgie, each one of them is in a little bit of a struggle to come to grips with each other’s opinion and each other’s position.

Enid’s got a very specific position as does Rosita, as does Maggie, as does Michonne, and they’re slightly conflicting. I think the women did a great job. I love the scene in the crossroads where Jayne Atkinson, who played Georgie, steps out and you see Maggie say, “We’re not making a deal, we’re taking all your stuff.” It’s very unlike the Maggie that we’ve seen before in that she realizes that in order for them to survive, it can’t all be roses. They can’t take in the people that they want to take in because they’re at odds and they’re in jeopardy and losing everything that they fought for.

By the end, when she looks at baby Gracie and Judith, and then she sees the POWs, and Michonne comes in and talks about Carl and talks about everything that they’ve all lost… Michonne really is the only one that is actively pursuing following Carl’s wishes, because clearly Rick’s out to kill Negan and really hasn’t taken much of what Carl had said to heart. It’s kind of a little odd he’s not honoring his son’s wishes, but he’s blinded by this rage that he just feels like Negan needs to die.

I think everybody did a great job. I’m a big fan of Jayne [Atkinson, who plays Georgie]. I love House of Cards, and I was really excited to get a chance to work with her on this character. She’s so out of her element. She steps out of that van and they’re talking like there isn’t a zombie apocalypse going on. She’s well-dressed, she has these two girls with her, and they’re kind of throwing out weird quirky jokes and you really look at her and you’re like, How have you survived in this world for so long? How long have you been surviving? It’s so out of left field, that we see someone basically coming to them without animosity or aggression, but saying “I see good in you, and we have to figure out how to proceed in the future in a way that is going to result in life and not death.”

Georgie says, “I’ll be back,” so will we be seeing her again?
In true Walking Dead fashion, when characters say that, most of them, they do, so who knows. It was a really interesting moment to have her just say “Listen, we just want records. We’ll trade.” Nobody trades. What are you talking about? People kill each other and take their stuff. When Maggie’s got her gun up and she’s like, “There’s no deal, we’re taking your stuff, and we’re going back to Hilltop,” Georgie doesn’t fight it. There’s no standoff or no tension. I think Georgie really is confident, more so than even Maggie, that Maggie ultimately is going to come around.

What can you say about what’s coming up in this final run of four episodes on season 8 of The Walking Dead?
As we continue our forward momentum, considering where Simon left us, I feel like it’s pretty safe to say that the Saviors — who are now taking the war to our heroes’ doorstep — have the upper hand. Listen, They want to inflict some damage, so I think the tide is going to turn and we’re going to see some serious retribution coming up.

Also make sure to check out our interview with Jayne Atkinson, who plays the mysterious Georgie. And for more Walking Dead scoop, follow Dalton on Twitter @DaltonRoss.