The Walking Dead’s Emily Kinney Open to Returning on One Condition

Emily Kinney would return to The Walking Dead if a reprisal of her role as Beth Greene "made sense." Kinney played Beth, daughter of Hershel (Scott Wilson) and half-sister to Maggie (Lauren Cohan), across four seasons, ending her tenure with the show when Beth was shot and killed in Season 5 episode "Coda." Beth was among the deceased characters whose voice could be heard by a gravely wounded Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in Season 9 episode "What Comes After," and Kinney was again involved with The Walking Dead in Season 10 when Kinney's music could be heard in episode 10x05, "What It Always Is."

"Yeah, I mean, totally. It's so fun," Kinney told Skybound's Talk Dead to Me podcast when asked if she was open to ever reprising her role, either through flashback or dream sequence. "I love playing Beth, I love acting, I love being on set. If it made sense and was cool, yeah, I'm always open. I love working [laughs]."

After Beth's death in "Coda," she first reappeared as a vision hallucinated by a bitten and dying Tyreese (Chad Coleman) in Season 5 episode "What Happened and What's Going On."

The likeliest scenario for another flashback or dream sequence could be through Daryl (Norman Reedus), whose close bond with Beth was cut short with her death, or through Maggie, who will return in the back half of Season 10 before Cohan rejoins The Walking Dead as a series regular in Season 11.

In 2018, Kinney — a touring singer/songwriter — admitted she no longer watched The Walking Dead, then in its ninth season.

"You know, I don't, because I don't watch a lot of TV and I travel a lot. I'm not, like, avoiding it," Kinney told The Stalking Dead Podcast. "I just don't. I just don't. I'm not specifically going, 'I'm not gonna watch it!' But I just, if I'm home, and I'm like, 'What do I want to watch today on TV?' I don't find myself wanting to watch it, [laughs]. I just don't, it's scary."

She continued, "I do like it, I like the show. I've loved watching it when I do watch it, I think it's so great. I'm proud of it. But I just don't watch [laughs]."

It was "satisfying" knowing Beth's death "made such an impact on people," Kinney added of the ensuing online fervor. "And the character you created resonated so much with people, and that they were gonna miss me. That was quite nice for my ego, I guess, not just like, 'Oh yeah, we don't really care, okay, they killed her off, bye, see ya,' you know? It was quite nice for my fragile actor ego to have people say, 'We love you, we miss you, we wish you were still on it.'"

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.