The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Star on Shocking, Explosive Premiere Role (Exclusive)

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live returned in explosive fashion on Sunday, bringing Rick Grimes back to the zombie franchise for the first time since Episode 5 of The Walking Dead‘s ninth season. Technically, Rick showed up in a credits scene teasing The Ones Who Live following the show’s series finale but the season nine exit happened back in 2018, giving The Walking Dead fans nearly six years to miss Andrew Lincoln and his Rick Grimes character. With Rick’s return came newcomer to the franchise, Craig Tate as his Okafor character. While Okafor’s tenure in the post-apocalyptic drama will have been short-lived, the explosive impact of Tate’s role will be felt in the episodes to come.

Spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live follow. Tate sat down with ComicBook.com for an exclusive interview, discussing his role on The Ones Who Live and the explosive exit his Okafor character made before the show’s premiere wrapped up.  “It was already inside the script and throughout the two months of filming, there is always rabbit in the back of your mind that, ‘Maybe there’s hope, maybe if I do good enough because we haven’t shot, okay, week one, week two, okay… We haven’t shot this scene yet!’” Tate explained. From the start, he knew Okafor’s role was for only one episode but the actor continued to tried to convince himself and those around him that he should stick around. “So, while obviously’s going to be on one of the last scenes and it is a little rabbit in the back of your mind, ‘Maybe if I wow them enough, it can change the ending,’ and ‘Nah, nope. Nah, bro, we got to get you out of here man. Thanks for your service.’”

This is The Walking Dead, after all. Countless fan-favorites have experienced the same stages of grief which Tate now has with his role in The Ones Who Live; joining The Walking Dead family only to be killed off before they’re quite ready to exit. 

Tate had the privilege of playing a character who filled in quite a few blanks for the audience, though. Not only did Okafor reveal details going back to the first seasons of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead about the bombings which took out entire cities when the apocalypse began but he also answered a long-running question of what “A” and “B” mean. “Scott [Gimple] does a phenomenal job of giving his all to the actual words inside of the script,” Tate said of the sequences which provided answers to the hardcore TWD fans. “And from that point on, once we got a director is Bert and Bertie, he just full-on trusted their vision and one the idea that we felt that you guys understand what we’re looking for. So it was more so Bert and Bertie and their words of direction, less of Scott, but he was definitely there as a presence.”

Still, after a briefing in the ruins of Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, Okafor took his final flight later in the episode. Sat beside Rick Grimes, Okafor learned that his mission to change and improve the CRM had convinced Rick Grimes to join. However, a rocket would blast through the window and blow the character away. “That was all CGI Computer generated images,” Tate explained, having sat through the take and being edited out of the shot when his character’s body was suddenly everywhere but in the seat. “Inside that single shot that was a hit call to enact a hit. And then from that point on, acting, acting, acting. Then they yell out what they yell out and then just the cameras keep on rolling. Then we do a swing over the Andy [Lincoln], but the portion that you would see was over my right side and I remember that closeup like it was yesterday and then just graphics are quite intricate. So, I was still right there even when I wasn’t right there, if that makes any sense. So in that shot, I’m still sitting right there and they just kind of shoot me and then boom, go back to that same phrase with your makeup and all that stuff done up.”

As for Okafor’s impact going forward, Tate has ideas. “It kind of seems that Okafor will hold this lasting impression going forward on Rick Grimes,” Tate said. “But I don’t know, maybe he just sees a guy, maybe Rick will see a guy who he was just so opposed to, but he was just so similar to himself. Maybe I guess he’ll at the conclusion of it all look back and say, ‘This is life.’ You look into a crack mirror and you have a hard time noticing who’s in front of you because the mirror is cracked. But essentially it’s still you you’re looking at, and maybe that’s what he’ll see. That’s who Okafor was. It was just a very direct reflection of himself when he probably will have to look at himself and say, ‘Man, I didn’t like Okafor, I had a problem with Okafor because I had a problem on myself.’ I don’t know, maybe. You know what I’m saying?”