Walker Stalker Con 2017: Our round-up of everything that went down.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
If you follow us on Twitter, you will know that the second London based Walker Stalker Con happened over the weekend. If you don’t follow us on Twitter, you really should. The event granted fans the perfect opportunity to engage with the stars of the hit show The Walking Dead, in the flesh. Over the weekend, fans could collect autographs and selfies from the guests desks, have a professional photo shoot with their favourite actor, or sit and chat with them during a mammoth amount of panels.
We know that not everyone was lucky enough to attend, but fear not, we were at the event all weekend and have collated all the best bits from the panels into one handy article. We’re nice like that. So read on to see what you missed. Be warned, there may be some slight spoilers if you’re not 100% caught up with the show.
1. Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus have, over the years, forged a very strong romance. However, recently, Reedus has started spending a lot of time with new cast addition Jeffrey Dean Morgan. When asked whether he feels that Jeffrey Dean Morgan has stolen Norman Reedus off of him, Lincoln said – “indeed he did”. Is the bromance over?
2. As he’s grown up with the character, Chandler Riggs isn’t sure where he ends and Carl Grimes begins. That being said, if he could work on any other show, he’d pick Mr Robot.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
3. David Morrissey (The Governor) and Scott Wilson (Herschel) are actually really good friends despite Morrissey having killed Wilson on the show. He’s apologised several times since by letting Scott beat him at golf.
4. Chandler Riggs is known for not reading his lines until just before he shoots them. He almost came a cropper during season four. Most of that season he had spent his time sat around eating chocolate pudding, but then he suddenly had pages of paragraphs and he hadn’t learned the lines. The scene in question is when Rick is lazing around and Carl is telling him it’s all his fault that everyone’s dead. Irritatingly for Lincoln, Riggs managed to pull the scene of perfectly despite not having fully prepared. Lincoln’s dark acting secret is that he has a tendency to spit a lot when he’s acting – just like that scene in Friends with Gary Oldman.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
5. Katelyn Nacon also has a decent set of pipes on her. Between several of the panels she took to the stage to sing. She did two, three song set-lists, during the weekend, the majority were her own material, but she also did a cover of Radiohead’s Creep.
6. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Austin Aurelio and Steven Ogg think that we’ve got the Savior’s all wrong. If seven years ago we’d have started with Negan in his sanctuary, they believe we’d see Rick and his survivours as the villains instead.
7. Tom Payne teased that we might get to learn about some of the backstory of his character Jesus. So far we know very little about his time before the apocalypse, he’s pretty much just been a ninja Jesus (a name Payne loves). This should change though as he gets closer to Maggie, Sasha and Enid.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
8. Jon Bernthal was told of Judith’s true parentage at Comic Con in the pool. He was as shocked as we were, and went onto say that he wish he’d known as he’d have played the role of Shane differently.
9. Xander Berkeley has been having a lot of fun with Gregory. He’s really enjoying being able to play a coward, “We’re used to seeing our male leaders as heroes, why not have a coward. In real life, people are cowards.”
10. In order to get into the mindset of the character of The Governor, actor David Morrissey read Jay Bonansinga‘s The Rise of the Governor. The book, as the title suggest, charts the governor’s rise to the top.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
11. If Christian Serratos (Rosita), Josh McDermitt (Eugene), Alanna Masterson (Tara) and Michael Cudliltz (Abraham) could have picked a character to have met Lucille instead of Abraham, they’d pick Sasha – Christian sticking up for Rosita, wanting to ‘get rid of that homewrecker.’ The rest had their eyes set firmly on the Grimes family. When asked about Judith, McDermitt retorted that he wasn’t sure what Shane’s surname was, but it certainly wasn’t Grimes.
12. Andrew Lincoln weighed in on what a British-set The Walking Dead would look like. “Well there would be a lot more tea and cake.” He also had a strange way around the no-guns policy of the UK. Apparently us British folks would be terribly polite about everything and would therefore politely ask the zombies to go away. Doesn’t sound like the most riveting of shows does it?
13. Everyone’s new favourite zombie Winslow was given a backstory by Greg Nicotero. He believes that Winslow is someone who had previously challenged Jadis and her group of people, and failed. Since his death he has become their champion, fighting all future challengers and causing many more to reassess their plans. Didn’t work out so well against Rick though. The idea for Winslow came about after Greg had an idea to create a zombie that was an actual work of art. He was meant to be the show’s Thunderdome moment.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
14. Andrew Lincoln revealed that he and Ross Marquand (Aaron) like to think of their characters as being zombie apocalypse versions of Star Trek. Marquand is Spock – forever raising an eyebrow, Lincoln is Kirk – always getting the girls, and Josh McDermitt is Scotty.
15. There are conflicting stories as to the realness of King Ezekiel’s tiger Shiva. Greg Nicotero shared that whilst what we see onscreen is mainly CGI, on set there is a fully animatronic beast. He wanted to give his actors something real to work with, rather than just the usual tennis ball. He believes that this generates better performances. Actor Khary Payton however, has a completely different version of events. His version is that he’s raised Shiva since she was a cub and she now subsists on a healthy diet of 2-3 lean walkers a week “They have to be lean, to keep the cholesterol down.” Payton has either had his sense of reality warped by his time on the show, or he was trying to keep the magic of Shiva alive for the younger fans in the audience.
16. Tom Payne, who plays Jesus, is relieved to finally not need the fake beard anymore. When he was originally cast as the long haired, bearded character he had no beard, and short hair. This meant that he had to have a fake beard applied daily. Not only was it difficult to work with in the Atlanta climate, but he also found it distracting. By having to put the beard on and being constantly reminded by the crew to be careful with it, he felt that it pulled him out of his character. Since starting on the show he has been able to grow his own beard, and whilst his hair has still needs extensions, he feels much more at home in the skin (and facial hair) of Jesus.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
17. During his panel Khary Payton was asked what it would take for him to share whether Ezekiel will join Rick in his battle against Negan. He responded by saying that it would take us sitting in front of our televisions for the next three to four weeks. He wouldn’t say any more than that as he didn’t want to get fired from his ‘dream job’, but three – four weeks isn’t too long to wait.
18. The television series and the comic book veer off into different directions, some characters that are dead in the comics are alive and vice versa. In the comics, Carl is taken to Negan’s camp, in the show it has been Eugene. The biggest way that the show differs though, is in its love connections. The comics have Rick paired with Andrea, Ezekiel with Michonne, and Eugene with Rosita. Josh McDermitt embraced the way that the show deviates from the source. Khary Payton agreed as it keeps readers of the comics on their toes too. McDermitt thought it was unlikely that we’ll ever see a Rosita-Eugene hookup, going so far as to say, “who knows If they’ll ever see each other again?” Payton isn’t about to get involved in splitting up Richonne any time soon, and refused to comment on whether Ezekiel and Carol will get together.
19. Greg Nicotero was really sad when he found out that Abraham was going to be Negan’s second victim. Worse still, he’d just had a chat with Michael Cudlitz who had shared how much he loved the show. The next day Nicotero walked into a meeting with Scott M. Gimple who said “Glenn’s lying dead on the ground, and then Negan turns and smashes Abraham” He went on to say that he feels like the Grim Reaper of the show, pretty much every time he directs an episode, someone dies.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
20. Austin Aurelio, who plays Negan’s punching bag Dwight, revealed that his own son is wary of Negan / Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He apparently got very upset after witnessing his daddy getting beaten up on screen. Morgan countered that his son was way too young to be watching the show.
22. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is looking forwards to Negan coming face-to-face with Ezekiel’s tiger, Shiva. He can’t wait to see Negan’s reaction, he’s gonna love it. He wouldn’t want Shiva for himself though, why would he need a tiger when he has his right hand man of Simon?
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
23. That clothes-line-through-the-zombie moment wasn’t in the original episode script. The script had the group driving away in the car and Rosita throwing a grenade into the crowd of zombies. Greg Nicotero and Scott M. Gimple thought that they had already blown up enough zombies on the show and wanted to do something different. They got the idea from Grindhouse and the helicopter sequence in 28 Weeks Later. They wanted it to be a big popcorn moment.
24. Xander Berkeley and Tom Payne have been surprised by the fan theory that Jesus is Gregory’s son. They understand why people could think it, their dynamic does feel a little like a rebellious teen and his stuffy father, but that isn’t how they’ve intentionally played it.
Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
25. Turns out that that smack that Olivia gives Negan was for real. Apparently Ann Mahoney hadn’t done any fight sequences before and didn’t realise that she was meant to pull her punches, “She hit the shit out me!” were Jeffrey Dean Morgan‘s exact words.
Catch The Walking Dead Monday night at 9pm on Fox.
