The Walking Dead: Lesley-Ann Brandt Binge-Watched Every Season to Prepare for New Series

Considering The Walking Dead became a cultural juggernaut in the 2010s it seems impossible to imagine someone that hasn’t seen the show in some form, but even the newcomers to the cast of the latest spinoff series are just now getting to it. Speaking with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Lesley-Ann Brandt (who plays a new character for the franchise named Pearl Thorne) revealed that one of her biggest pieces of preparation for her role was to do her homework and watch the entirety of the flagship The Walking Dead TV series. Not only did she watch all of it to get ready, she watched all 177 episodes in just three weeks. 

“It helped that I binged the show from the beginning. I did all the seasons, that’s a lot of Walking Dead, and I think I did it in like three weeks. I felt a responsibility to you, the fans, and also in understanding the tone of the show and what made these two (Rick and Michonne) so special. What was the spark and how does my character come in to help tell that story? And what is my point of view? And what makes me different and similar to these two? Because I think, outside of this world, Michonne and Thorne would have probably been friends. They’re two strong women. And I think that plays into a little bit of the chemistry of those two.”

Lesley-Ann Brandt went on to tease with us that her character Pearl Thorne will force a unique relationship with Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes, largely thanks to the surprise similarities they have in their backstories.

“She will forge a very close relationship with Rick and a real comrade. They share a similar…she was trying to get home to her love and had been trying for years. So they share that same struggle. Thorn I think is someone who understands when she made that decision that this is the world she’s now in and she commits to it. Whereas, you know, Rick is a bit of a wild horse and it’s harder for him to do that. Obviously he has a family, he has Michonne out there. I think she starts out just trying to help him through that and saving his butt a couple of times as they progress through this time at the CRM and at the Civic Republic.”

Where can I watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will premiere its first episode on AMC and stream on AMC+ on Sunday, February 25, 2024. The six-episode series will premiere new episodes weekly, with the release schedule looking like this:

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 release date – Sunday, February 25, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 2 release date  – Sunday, March 3, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 3 release date  – Sunday, March 10, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 4 release date  – Sunday, March 17, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5 release date  – Sunday, March 24, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 6 release date  – Sunday, March 31, 2024

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live series is the much anticipated return of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, filling in the gap of the story about what happened to his character after he left the flagship The Walking Dead series in season 9 while also continuing the story of Danai Gurira’s Michonne following The Walking Dead series finale. Other cast members for the series include Pollyanna McIntosh, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Matt Jeffries, and Terry O’Quinn. AMC describes The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live as follows:

This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead… And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive — or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead? Gimple serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside Lincoln and Gurira.