The Walking Dead’s Juan Gabriel Pareja Recalls Early Zombie Days

On Sunday night, ComicBook.com’s Quarantine Watch Party will be celebrating the first two episodes of The Walking Dead. When everyone presses play on their own respective copies of the zombie show at 9pm ET, Morales actor Juan Gabriel Pareja will be joining the fun by sharing some memories and thoughts from the early days on the set. Pareja, who starred in five of the first season’s six episodes, joined ComicBook.com for an exclusive interview ahead of the Watch Party event. While talking via Zoom, Pareja opened up about joining the series and how much of an impact it had on his life.

“I think it definitely played a big role in helping me kind of just get into a next-level of the career and kind of the next rung up on the career and it certainly opened some doors along the way, for sure,” Pareja said. “You still gotta bring it, you still gotta seal the deal, but, certainly, I think it’s definitely played a role in helping me get into certain rooms over the years and allowed me to do my thing. But, yes, feel incredibly blessed and forever grateful for that experience and the doors that it’s opened and the paths that it’s led me down.”

Pareja has since played dozens of roles in TV and video games, many of which have also fallen within the borders of the zombie genre. Titles include Days Gone, Just Cause 4, State of Decay 2, Proven Innocent, Chicago Med, Castle, Dead Rising 3, and more.

It goes back to ten years ago, the first day on the show’s set, and becoming a part of the epic ensemble in Atlanta’s zombie apocalypse. “[My first scene was] the scene where we were, we eventually ended up on the rooftop, but it was the scene where we found Rick,” Pareja explained. “Found Andy [Lincoln] inside the department store, and as a group, we brought him in, and I think we did that first, and then afterwards, we cut away to the scene with me and Glenn, or me and IronE [Singleton], going into beating up the zombies as Glenn was bringing him into the department store to join the rest of us.”

It was no easy work, surviving the apocalypse. Pareja points out that there were days on The Walking Dead set where production ran for up to 17 hours.

Pareja’s first episode, Guts, will be one of the two episodes fans are celebrating on Sunday night. “That episode was pretty epic and it definitely, it was a big episode, got to work with everybody, got to get my bearings,,” Pareja explained. “At that point, I was really new to the scene, so, kind of trying to balance the experience and making sure that I was doing everything I had to do to bring it, but, at the same time, being a little starstruck and a little kind of overwhelmed by the presence of so many kind of just stellar actors that we were working with, so, it was definitely an interesting time.”

You can watch Pareja’s full interview in the video above. Be sure to join him for the Quarantine Watch Party on Sunday night, beginning with following him on Twitter.

How does Quarantine Watch Party work? Simple. At 9pm ET on Sunday night, everybody who wishes to attend the Quarantine Watch Party presses play on their respective edition of The Walking Dead Episode 1×01 (Days Gone Bye) and follows it immediately with Episode 1×02 (Guts). Viewers can use DVD/blu-ray collections or a Netflix stream of the series. While the episodes ar eplaying, viewers hop on Instagram or Twitter and post using #QuarantineWatchParty and #TWD with their thoughts, jokes, debates and photos showing off their at-home theater set ups!

ComicBook.com’s Quarantine Watch Party for The Walking Dead begins at 9pm ET on Sunday night!