NYCC 2019: The Walking Dead Universe Panel Recap

The Walking Dead took over Madison Square Garden on Saturday morning at New York Comic Con for a preview of its upcoming tenth season. The panel, hosted by Chris Hardwick, include Angela Kang, Scott Gimple, Robert Kirkman, Dave Alpert, Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Danai Gurira, Cailey Fleming, Josh McDermitt, Seth Gilliam, and Ross Marquand.

“Going into ten season is amazing in and of itself,” Kang said. “Just to have made it to ten season is amazing. We couldn’t have done it without our fans…We’re trying to do new things, push in new directions, all of hhese actors who are up on this stage are doing just phenomenal work.”

Why does Season 10 start in space? “We were just trying to brain storm different things that would happen to the world and that was one of those things,” Kang said. “Satellites would fall out of the sky.”

Hardwick asks Reedus if Beta and Daryl will fight again. “I hope there’s nto a rematch cause it hurt. A lot of Advil went down during that,” Reedus said. “There’s a different fighting style with Daryl…My only hope in fighting Beta is to get in tight and chop down that tree.” Reedus says Daryl is “a different guy now” who used to not care. “Now, he’s learned from the people that have been there before him. He has the ghosts of these people that he’s befriended who are mo longer with us.” He will think of Rick, Hershel, and Shane and what they would do.

“We both love each other,” “But she’s going through some stuff and it’s crazy because we know each other so well now as Melissa and Norman. If Carol’s mad at Daryl or Daryl’s mad at Carol, I find myself mad at Melissa! It’s a complicated relationship but it’s definitely threaded in realism. It’s complicated right now. I know there’s the Caryl shippers and the Connie shippers and the Beth shippers. It’s complicated ships!”

Where does he stand with Connie? “I love that Daryl is taking the time to learn to speak with her,” Reedus said. He respects her and sees the value in her. “I think that it’s a nice relationship forming there as well.”

Continued

Hardwick turns to Gilliam to talk about the love quadrangle with Rosita. “First and foremost, it takes a village to raise a child,” he jokes. “Everybody’s got their roles. Eugene does his stats and analytics. Siddiq does his feedings. Father Gabriel does Rosita.” He also notes that he can “recognize the human being” behind how tough Negan acts.

And, for McDermitt, how is working with baby Coco? “It’s a real baby,” he says. “I don’t have any children so it’s been a learning curve but I show up to daycares and just ask if I can hold babies.”

“There’s a lot of great stuff coming up this season that Angela has pulled from the comics,” he said. “for me, it’s all about Alpha and Beta, Beta and Alpha. I thnk the Whisperer War is coming in a big way. There’s gonna be some cool scenes we’re gonna see from the comics.” Kirkman praises Samantha Morton as Alpha and admits that she is very different from what he imagined when writing the comics. “Ryan Hurst, as Beta, we’ve been trying to put Ryan on this show since Season 2…it’s like meeting a basketball player, it’s crazy.” 

Kirkman opens up about the comic book ending and now being allowed reveal his favorite character. “I think it’s okay for me to admit that Negan’s my favorite character,” Kirkman said. “The truth is, I had like three different points in the comics where I was killing Negan and I would get to it and go, ‘Nope, nope, nope, can’t do it.’ There was one point where I sent the script to Charlie Adlard and he wrote me back like, ‘Oh my god, we’re killing Negan?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right, we shouldn’t do it!’” 

Paola Lazaro is going to play Juanita Sanchez — Princess, from the comics. 

Fleming discussing getting her first Pop! figures of Judith and Marquand discusses wearing the metal ball for a hand. Marquand says Aaron does not want to team up with Negan, although he was excited to work with Jeffrey Dean Morgan. 

How is Gurira doing with her exit from the series? “I miss her,” Gurira says of Michonne’s katana. “I have finished with my time shooting. It was a really interesting transition. You wake up for a few days, you’re like, ‘Huh?’ Michonne, she’s in me, she’s in my bone marrow…It’s that sort of transition where you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s the day after.’ So, I’ve been in the day after for a while.”

To honor Gurira, they play a clip of her with Chandler Riggs from The Walking Dead‘s third season. 

“The beauty of my journey has been all about this amazing fandom. Right from the jump I sas embraced by the fans,” she said. “I just had moved to Atlanta, Georgia, I hae never been to the city before, I was stepping into this juggernaut…I was standing on a road with Laurie Holden…this car drives bar and they go, ‘We love you Danai! We love you Lauren!’ I was like, ‘What? They know my name? They love me already?’ That invigorated me to give my all…I love you guys and will always love you guys, thank you.”

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A fan asks Gimple about the Rick movies. “We are working on them. What do we say? Ninjas,” he jokes. “Andy is talking to me and Mr. Kirkman a lot, as well. We are hoping to have some news for you in the next month or two.”

Will we see Negan and Daryl fighting together? “Maybe,” Reedus said. 

“Stay tuned,” Kang adds.

What will Gurira take from Michonne? “She’s stronger than me, she’s smarter than me, she’s probably a better lover than me.” 

When we see another look at a city? “We will be seeing them,” Gimple said.

“How do we not spoil?” Kang said.

“My terrible answer about the movie is haunting me,” Gimple said. “There’s a lot that’s been going on in the world of The Walking Dead outside of these character and we will be discovering those other places through this show, through the movie, and beyond that.”

If Reedus could change Dog’s name what would he name it? “I love that dog,” he says. “Merle, maybe. Probably Merle. Daryl would like that. Come here, Merle! Come here!”

Masked as a Negan cosplayer wearing a Jason mask with a fan question, Lauren Cohan takes the stage to announce the return of Maggie.

TWD3

Following The Walking Dead’s Season 10 panel, the second spinoff show and third overall series hosted a panel of its own. The panel starts with a trailer.

The trailer is set nearly a decade after the apocalypse. Kids discuss Monument Day, a day dedicated to the past, following kids who have grown up in the post-apocalyptic world. The panelists take the stage, including Scott Gimple, Matt Negrete, Robert Kirkman, and the cast take the stage.

“These are kids that grew up in a place of safety,” Gimple says. “They’ve grown up in the apocalypse. They’ve been aware of walkers but they haven’t really been interacting with them. They’ve been behind walls. That makes any journey that they made need to make incredibly dangerous…They don’t remember much of a world without walkers. This is the normal world to them and yet they’ve been apart from it…There’s a quest aspect to it. They’re going somewhere…It wasn’t in this trailer but the place they’re in is a part of that, we’ve seen that three-circle symbol…those three circles, and I’m saying it here, represent three different civilizations that are bound and entwined in some ways and in some ways very, very different. The pace they’re from is one of those places.”‘

The series begins in the midwest, nearly 10 years into the apocalypse. “This is one of those big things that is happening at the same time as The Walking Dead but they have no idea about each other,” Gimple says. 

“It’s a long journey,” Negrete says. “If you’re going a long distance like that, that’s a tough thing to do normally but in the apocalypse, imagine the sort of obstacles you have to face…There are hordes of dead out there. There are peopll that are maybe good, maybe bad, out there…There’s a big obstacle that the group has to pass and it’s this huge thing…It was important that we call it the point of no return.”

“People always come up with that,” Gimple said of a musical episode of The Walking Dead. “We are actually trying to work on [a musical episode],” Gimple said. “You heard it here.” 

Kirkman is asked about diving further into the universe. “This project is expanding the universe in its biggest ways yet,” he says. “What Scott and Matt have been able to put together is absolutely impressive.”

“One of my favorite comic moments of The Walking Dead was the Brian K. Vaughn story,” Gimple said. “It was an example of the world being opened up…that was, in some ways, sort of a touch stone not only with this but everything moving forward.” 

Aaliyah Royale is asked about Iris: “She’s this extremely smart, and loving, kind person who gets along with everyone,” she says. “She realizes at some point this might not have all been for herself but possibly for everybody else. She decides to make a decision for herself, for the first time…and go on an adventure.” 

On TWD3, zombies are called “Empties.” Royale had to perform a scene where she had to save her sister from empties and fall down covered in the dead. “They brought out these two pieces of silicon that were for my butt,” she explains. They were to help her fall but they weren’t easy to put on. 

Next is Hope actress Alexa Mansour. “She knows the reality of it so she’s iving realistically. She’s probably the opposite of Iris,” she says. “Hates authority, doesn’t seem very smart, has maybe a little alcohol problem.” 

Nicolas Cantu is asked about joining the universe: “I’ve been consuming zombie media since I was just a little boy,” he says. “Seeing these empties walking around being as creepy as ever, it’s a dream come true!” He was a fan of the original series and started watching it when he was 10. “It really creates this interesting dynamic where we’ve been sheltered from this reality that is these horrible monsters roaming the streets,” he says. “Everybody’s got a reason to be out there beyond the walls. Elton is a wise old soul…he wants to see how nature has taken over and impacted the world as we know it.”

Hal Cumpston is asked about what drew him to Silas. Initially, it was being a part of The Walking Dead universe. “He has his own reasons,” for leaving, he says. “Him going on this journey is a fresh start. It’s interesting to play someone who doesn’t put all their cards on the table.”

Next is Annet Mahendru, who plays Huck. “You saw the gash on her face,” she said. “There’s a big story there. She’s seen some terrible things and now she’s a part of this community that she’ll do anything for to keep them safe…She’s tough but she’s the kind of girl you grab a beer with at the end of a really long, awful shift.” Gimple notes that she might get someone into a bar fight.”

Gimple teases a “jump in technology” because this community has been safe for so long.

Nico Tortella is asked about his first day on set as Felix. He found out about the show a week before it existed. “All I knew was that Fellix was queer,” he said. “A lot of my work is about just breaking down binaries that exist everywhere. Scott said something that just stuck: ‘On this show, the only binary that exists is dead and alive.’ I was hooked…My first day on set, it’s my birthday and it’s also Felix’s birthday in the scene that I’m shooting.”

Gimple says he does have plans for crossovers with TWD3. “It’s very much on its own but, like I said, there are points where there is a little bit of crossover,” he said. He also adds that Cantu’s character has special technology to prevent himself from getting bit.  

Does this show dive into the three-circle groups? “This very much gets very deeply into that mythology,” Gimple said. “As far as Rick’s story is concerned, it’s very, very separate but we’re gonna get a very good look at just how big the world of The Walking Dead is.”