Fear the Walking Dead introduced the next big crossover between the Walking Dead shows on Sunday night with Austin Amelio making his debut on the spinoff series as his popular Dwight character. Dwight’s journey to Fear the Walking Dead was a long one, both for the character and the actor in the role, as Amelio learned of the crossover years before it was carried out. In fact, in a recent interview, Amelio revealed that the jump from one show to another was actually his idea originally.
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“I heard that Fear the Walking Dead was going to Texas and I was joking around with [The Walking Dead] universe chief content officer] Scott [Gimple] maybe a couple months before,” Amelio told Insider. “I was like, wouldn’t that be funny if Dwight went to [Fear the Walking Dead]. You know, I’m from here so I was trying to get back down.”
That’s when the idea popped into Amelio’s head and was spoken into existence. “I was like wouldn’t it be funny if Dwight crossed over? And we both laughed about it,” Amelio said. “Then all of a sudden, two episodes before we wrap up the season [of The Walking Dead], I got a call from him saying, ‘Hey, how do you feel about, you know, going down to Texas and doing Fear?’ So, I don’t know if that seed… He probably forgot about that to be honest. I think it just made sense for my character to go down there because of the storyline.”
In that time, Dwight has been on one mission: “Effectively searching for his wife, like a drug addict trying to get his next fix.” His future, however, might include some transformations of that mission. “Well, there’s a couple other scenes that pop up for Dwight later in the season and obviously, you’re not going to see Dwight playing the same notes throughout the whole season,” Amelio explains. “There’s going to be some other things that he starts fighting for and really starts paying attention to. And that’s going to be really pivotal for his journey and his character arc.”
Of course, Sunday night’s episode marked the reunion of a couple of men who were previously enemies during war. Austin Amelio and Lennie James had never interacted in a scene but had shared sets on The Walking Dead in several instances. “We did never do any scenes together,” Amelio explained. “You know, it was just really, really surreal. It was surreal seeing him down here. It was surreal seeing [director] Mike Satrazemis was down here. And then getting to shoot a scene with Lennie where we both see each other for the first time. It was all so surreal. I love Lennie James to death and to get to shoot that, it was really fun. It’s really fun playing that.”
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Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm ET.
