‘The Walking Dead’ Legend Greg Nicotero Opens Up ‘The Book of Carol’: “She’s Not Bada**, She’s Efficient”
[This story contains some spoilers from the season two premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol.]
There are very few figures from the original Walking Dead days still involved in the franchise. Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride’s Daryl Dixon and Carol Pelletier are two of those familiar faces, hailing from the Frank Darabont-helmed first season of The Walking Dead, and now headlining their own spinoff in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol.
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But there’s another person who has been with them every step of the way, who has charted not only Daryl and Carol’s journeys, but the evolution of the dead themselves: Greg Nicotero, the executive producer and legendary horror mastermind chiefly responsible for bringing the dead to life. A fixture within the greater Walking Dead franchise since season one, Nicotero became one of the show’s most reliable directors, and is still performing that role as recently as the Daryl Dixon season two premiere.
Below, Nicotero speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about crafting the Walking Dead spinoff‘s thrilling second season opener, how he keeps innovating zombies all these years after the first season, and why he has a little bit of a different perspective on Carol than most everybody else.
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Carol’s back! Walk me through returning Melissa McBride to the Walking Dead universe. What were the goals of this first episode?
This is the first episode of Daryl Dixon that spends the majority of its time in the United States, but it was all shot in the northeast of France. Even the drive-in movie theater was sort of this idea of being really American that you wouldn’t see in Europe, it tells the audience a story. Ash’s compound, we found a house about an hour outside of Paris where we could build the greenhouse and the barn. So we went and built out that American flavor.
For me, at this point, I was so excited to shoot a Walking Dead episode that had a different flavor to it. This show has a really distinct feel in how it’s shot, how it’s edited, the choreography. We used to have dollies and cameras glide around slowly when we were in Georgia [shooting the flagship series], and here, there was maybe one dolly track for the whole episode. The rest was all steadicam. So there’s a whole visual motif to build within the camera.
From a technical standpoint, you’re highlighting some key departures between the original Walking Dead and this new version. What are some other ways in which you find the shows markedly different? Location has to be a big one, as far as how shooting in Europe impacts what you can do now?
First of all, yeah, it’s the location itself. You have castles, you have monasteries, things that are hundreds and hundreds of years old. Thousands of years, in some instances. You can really let the locations be the character. Mont Saint-Michel, for instance. I had learned about this place in high school, the history of it; how before there was a bridge, people would take a pilgrimage across the flats and if the tide came in and they didn’t make it, they were deemed not worthy. There’s a real desire to make sure we paid tribute to the culture. We didn’t have that culture as a character in the original show, not in the same way. Here, we have a lot of opportunities. That’s why we’ve done so many big sweeping drone shots. We want it to feel immersive. Between [fellow directors] Michael Slovis and Dan Percival, I think we did exactly that.
From a walker standpoint, what are you still able to innovate all these years into the franchise?
In the universe of the show, there’s this whole subculture of amped-up zombies now. There are these experiments making the zombies faster and deadlier, as we established in season one. This season… well, you’ll see. You’ll see more things like veins crawling around their faces. We shot this one sequence, an attack, with lots of zombies, and we had them running. People were coming up to me asking, “Are you okay with zombies running? I know you’re a purist.” And I said, “Look, it makes sense! There’s a reason why they’re running. It’s not just someone said, ‘Zombies should be fast,’ and we’re doing it.”
Just look at episode one, when Carol’s in the greenhouse. She gets trapped in there. I love how clever she is about barricading herself in. But what’s important for me in that scene is how you see the zombies. Their faces are right there. If you go back and look at the history of the show, we’re rarely too close to the zombies for any duration of time before they’re killed. The big one is when Noah [Tyler James Williams] and Glenn [Steven Yeun] were in the revolving door in season five, and what was intriguing about that scene is Glenn was completely protected, so he could have a front row seat [to the zombies executing Noah’s gruesome demise].
For me, it’s always important to see these zombies. I’m the enforcer on set. I’m Dirty Harry. I’m always telling everyone, “Guys, shoot close ups of the zombies!” A lot of time, when we’re blocking a scene, if a zombie is 20 feet away, we’re concentrating on Daryl and Carol. But not the zombies. We’re not jumping in and getting in too close with them. But that’s always my intuition. They’re a character in this show. You can always tell in my episodes that the zombies are highlighted even more than most other episodes, because I feel like seeing them close really immerses you in the world.
It’s striking that balance between showcasing the human aspect of The Walking Dead, while not losing sight of the walking dead themselves.
Right, it’s about balance, and keeping it real, which you have to keep in check. That’s part of what I try to do. I’ll sometimes say to the showrunners or the writers, “I think we need a little more of this stuff. We need to remind the audience of the world that we live in.” When you’re in a Western, you’re always reminded you’re in a Western. That’s something we need to do too. You don’t want to get too bogged down in other stuff and you forget about the world outside the monastery door.
Returning to the topic of Melissa and her return to The Walking Dead, as you mentioned, you’ve worked with her since The Mist, and certainly the first season of the flagship series. You’ve seen and helped Carol evolve into the Sarah Connor type she is today. What’s your take on her journey to this point, how she became this way?
I’ve known Melissa since we shot The Mist with Frank Darabont. That’s where we met, and where Frank discovered her amazing talents. I remember being on that set and Frank was like, “Damn, this woman is so damn good.” There’s this moment at the end of the movie when Tom Jane sees her, and it’s a direct result of how much Frank admired her talent. So she and I have been really good friends for a really long time. Here, transporting this character into this show was a monumental feat, but Melissa trusts and knows me. That got us a long way.
It’s funny, because I don’t look at Carol as a badass the same way everybody else does. Melissa and I have talked about this on numerous occasions. She’s the one who says, “I just do what needs to get done.” One of my favorite episodes I directed was [the season five premiere], where she goes into Terminus. All of her friends are there. She has to save them. She’s very efficient and clever about how she does it. She’s not an expert fighter or anything, she’s just clever, and she uses what she knows to be efficient in saving her friends and getting herself out of situations. But it all comes from emotion.
There’s something very subtle about Melissa as an actor and Carol as a character that I really love. Go back to the beginning of season four. When there’s a viral outbreak in the prison. Carol ends up killing two people who are sick and burning their bodies. You never see her do it. It’s this heinous crime, like, who would do this horrible thing? And you realize she’s capable of doing it, but only because she wanted to protect everyone else that was there. Rick finds out and Rick banishes her, but in that moment, it’s Carol starting to become who she is today.
There are all these steps along the way where Carol’s learning her voice and learning her strength. She bashes Ed’s dead body with a shovel in season one, and you see she’s letting out all of this rage that’s been inside. You see in season two, she loses Sophia [Madison Lintz]. She then develops this friendship with Daryl. All of these things just add up more and more for this character. So for me, when people go, “Carol is such a badass,” my response is, “She’s not badass. She’s efficient. She does what she needs to do.” The journey that got her here, though, is really fascinating.
Yeah, I even think back to before season four, when the prison is overrun and Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) dies, and they all think Carol died, too. But she’s just hiding out and waiting it out. There’s a depth of lore to this character by virtue of how long she, and the franchise, have been around.
In February, it’s going to be 15 years for me, maybe even more, because I was hired [for season one] before we went into physical production. I got the script a year ahead of time. I am the last man standing from the original Walking Dead. So I can appreciate a lot of this stuff, like this scene in [the Daryl Dixon season two premiere], where Carol lies about Sophia. “Oh, yeah, she’s in France.” You’re so not expecting that from her. It’s one of my favorite moments because the audience knows Sophia has been dead for a very long time, but she’s so cunningly weaving a web, and it’s something that plays for her across this whole season, because of course she has guilt about evoking Sophia. She’s not an emotionless terminator. The fact that she goes there? It’s a holy shit moment.
But I have to say, the location and the crew, and Norman and Melissa’s passion, and [showrunner David Zabel’s] leadership, really keeps this whole thing fresh. I’m someone here who provides continuity between the original show and the new one. There are times when I’ve said, “I don’t know if that would happen,” or, “we’ve done that before.” And in some of those moments, David has smartly said, “We did it on that show, but here, we’re going to make it different.” I really admire that. He’s so committed to making this show feel fresh and new.
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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol season two releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on AMC. The series has already been renewed for a third season. Follow along with THR‘s season coverage here, and keep track of the franchise spinoffs.
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