Geekscape Interviews: ‘Fear The Walking Dead’s Kim Dickens And Alycia Debnam-Carey Talk About Human-Looking Walkers And More!

It’s been a few weeks now since the always-incredible (and always exhausting), events of San Diego Comic-Con, and I’m beyond excited that I’m just now able to talk about one of the highlights of this year’s week in San Diego.

If you’re a long-time reader of Geekscape, you’ll know how huge of a fan of The Walking Dead I am. I’ve been keeping up with the comic book since I was in high school, passionately wrote Geekscape’s Walking Dead Weekly column before life got in the way, and of course, ate up every single second of Telltale’s incredible The Walking Dead video game.

So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to speak with the cast and producers of the new, mysterious companion series, Fear the Walking Dead.

Now, that being said, I’d felt a little iffy about Fear The Walking Dead since the companion series was first revealed. Sure, the world wants as much The Walking Dead as it can get (again, you do know that there’s both a comic book and incredible video game too, right?), but would this series simply be the same show in a different location, and without the survivors we already know and love? How could it differentiate itself from what’s essentially the most popular television series on the planet?

After having an opportunity to speak with the cast and producers of the series last month, any concerns that I had about Fear the Walking Dead disappeared, and I’m now simply excited to see where East Los Angeles, and the beginnings of the infection, take this dysfunctional blended family.

And that was all before that awesome trailer was released.

The interviews were run in a round-table format, and had journalists speaking to a few of the actors (or producers) at the same time. As it was a round-table, not all questions were mine, but all of them are definitely worth reading. It wasn’t the fantastic trailer or meeting these actors that made me really excited for Fear The Walking Dead, but the passion, excitement, and chemistry that all of its talent have with the project and each other.

You can read my interview with Rubén Blades and Mercedes Mason, who play Daniel and Ofelia Salazar here, and this time around, it’s Kim Dickens And Alycia Debnam-Carey, who portray Madison and Alicia Clark.

Kim Dickens: Hi, I’m Kim Dickens.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Hi, I’m Alycia Debnam-Carey.

Kim Dickens: She has an Aussie accent.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: I’ve got a crazy last name. Sorry. [laughs]

Question: So ladies, what can you tell us about your characters in the show?

Kim Dickens: I play Madison Clark, who is a high school counselor and mother to Alicia and Nick, a couple of teenagers. One of them is a ne’er-do-well and one of them is a golden child. I’m pointing to Alycia [Debnam-Carey] [Alycia laughs]. We’re sort of forming a new second family with my boyfriend I’m in love with, Cliff [Curtis]. I mean, not Cliff. [Alycia laughs] Cliff’s the actor. I’m kind of in love with him, anyway… Travis, and we’re joining our family, sort of a modern, fractured patchwork family put together. I play the single mom that has been raising her kids and meets the apocalypse.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: So, I play Alicia with the same character name as myself, which is kind of strange. But spelt differently so it is still a little different. [laughs] She’s kind of the weird sister with kind of frustrating needs. She’s the golden child as Kim has said and she’s an over-achiever. She’s in a really great position but she really wants out of Los Angeles. She kind of has a beautiful boyfriend and is ready to go to Berkeley. She’s from a bit of a broken home. She’s lost her dad and the brother’s a little wayward and gone off on his own. He’s suffering with addiction. She sort of feels like kind of caught up in the downward spiral in a way. Though she has a great love for the family, she just wants to get out.

Kim Dickens: To break away from the drama.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Yes.

Kim Dickens: Good luck! [laughs!]

Alycia Debnam-Carey: That’s not going to last long. [laughs]

Question: In the universe of “The Walking Dead,” everything is happening at the same time?

Kim Dickens: It is the same universe and mythology as “The Walking Dead” but we are before that. Before you meet Sheriff Grimes and his coma and everything, we are sort of what happens during that coma and a little bit before that, in a different part of the United States.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: It shows you the crumbling of civilization and how something like this epidemic would affect society and the speed at which it happens, too.

Question: Is that going to go slow or –

Kim Dickens: It is a little bit, we call it a bit of a slow burn, you know.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: It’s certainly what our first season really focuses on – the destruction of society.

Kim Dickens: It’s like the initial crumbling. It’s like the first three weeks where it’s all of happening. It’s really the Internet rumors and the paranoia of a virus….

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Conspiracy.

Kim Dickens: Conspiracy theories. We’ve covered about three weeks in our first season of six episodes.

Question: How soon in your show will be seeing walkers and things like that?

Kim Dickens: I don’t know. You have to tune in.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: I know! [laughs]

Kim Dickens: I don’t know. We could wait until the very end of the season and what that will be like but no.

Question: [laughs] So they’re not necessarily at the beginning?

Kim Dickens: I don’t think I could give any spoilers away but they’re going to be there.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: It is the same world.

Kim Dickens: It will surprise you.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: We’re uncovering it in a very different way. These zombies, these are not looking like what we already know in “The Walking Dead.” They’re not kind of like those zombies as we know it.

Kim Dickens: They still look hauntingly familiar like your neighbor and your co-workers. It’s a little…

Alycia Debnam-Carey: They’ve very humanistic still. That makes it harder to tell.

Kim Dickens: It makes it very confusing as to how to handle it.

Question: It’s not clear like what happened, how it all came to be like that. I was reading – it’s going to be happening with the rumors and everything. Do you think at one point, you are going to know what happened?

Kim Dickens: I don’t know. I don’t think that’s our priority to sort of unearth what the cause of it is, but you never know –

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Where the show might lead us.

Question: How would you say that the style of “Fear the Walking Dead” is different from the style of “The Walking Dead?”

Kim Dickens: How our title is different?

Question: The style, the style of the show.

Kim Dickens: Oh, the style.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: The style is really different. The setting of Los Angeles makes it initially so, the environment is different. I look at it because I’m a fan of the original “The Walking Dead.” It has got a quiet provincial feel in a way. It’s rural, it’s out in the woods and it’s very pulled back or stripped back. This one is very urban. It’s the community, it’s the city, and it’s a cultural melting pot. It’s in every sense artistic as well. It feels very layered. The original of course is, too. This one is stacked with so many layers. You slowly start to see how that crumbles away.

Kim Dickens: A very urban, grounded, diverse community. It’s not your typical Los Angeles with red carpets and stuff. Though I think it will be really fun if walkers did ruin someone’s red carpet moment.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: You see like, a Hollywood celebrity walking around with half a face. [laughs]

Kim Dickens: We have got to get some cameos.

Question: You’re a fan of the show. I mean how cool is it to get this role?

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Oh, it’s awesome. To be honest, I hadn’t watched it before and then I got the gig. Then at once I have to go and watch it now. It’s given me an excuse to like, binge-watch three weeks of amazing television. Then after that I very quickly fell in love with the show. It is such an amazing, complex drama and it’s almost like the walkers are like a side plot in a weird way. I think that’s how our show is great, too. It has so much dense drama, personal interactions and human dynamics and that for us I think is a real feast.

Question: Are they staying in L.A. or are they leaving L.A. at that point or deciding to run away from it?

Alycia Debnam-Carey: We’re staying in L.A. for the first season. We don’t know beyond that.

Question: Is it shot only in L.A.?

Kim Dickens: We shot the pilot in L.A. and then we had to go to Vancouver to shoot the rest of our season, which is another five episodes. Now we’re in L.A. for about three weeks shooting. We’re shooting right now. We’re shooting more exteriors in L.A. It’s not just like going in or out of the doors. It’s like full scenes that are in the environment of L.A.

Question: Anything there, anything iconic –

Kim Dickens: Right now we are in East L.A. That’s where we’re filming. They’re going to grab some skylines. We’re going to see the beach. They’re going to see stuff.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: We’re going to have iconic smoggy sunsets. [laughs] That’s so typically L.A. It doesn’t feel like any other city. East L.A. is such a different Los Angeles to what you typically think of as L.A.

Question: How are the special effects? Was it a fun thing to do? Or a tedious process?

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Any kind of special effects is always really fun I think.

Kim Dickens: I like the action stuff that we’re doing. For me it’s been probably one of the most exhausting jobs I’ve ever had but the most fun. I get a little bit – I love the action stuff and if I get just a dialog scene, I’m kind of like, eh.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: It’s a little give and take.

Kim Dickens: We can wrestle and fight.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: You are up until often the middle of the night. The next day we all just have bruises everywhere. The last couple of days I just had to cover up my legs with just make-up powder because it has been terrible. [laughs]

Kim Dickens: We like to do as much stuff as we can.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: It’s just so fun.

Question: How is it working with Cliff [Curtis]?  Have you met him before?

Kim Dickens: I never met him before but I camera-tested with him for the role. He’s just a lovely person. He’s like a New Zealand manly man but there’s such tenderness and sweetness in his heart and soul. He’s just like really a magical person and such an artful soul. It’s such a joy to work with him.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: The way he works, too. He’s such a joy to watch. He comes into a scene sort of just nothing and then just finds it. It’s amazing. It’s such a treat. Both Kim [Dickens] and Cliff [Curtis] are amazing.

Question: How do you think a fan of “The Walking Dead” will react to “Fear the Walking Dead”?

Kim Dickens: I hope they have a strong reaction to it.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Whether they’ll love it or hate it I’m not sure. I think that it is so different. I think maybe that will be a little bit of a shock at first. It is very, very different. I think people will really come around to it especially by Episode 6 I think it will really get locked in. They’ll be like, wait a second. It’s a whole different game now!

Kim Dickens: I think it’s such a passionate audience. I think they’re ready to give us a chance. They really believe in the show runners and creators and all that: Robert Kirkman and… I think they’re going to have to make that decision when they see it. I think they’re going to have to allow it to be different. I feel like they’re pretty open-minded and like I said they have a very passionate, voracious appetite for it. I hope we please them.

Question: How hands-on is Robert Kirkman on the set? Is he there all the time?

Kim Dickens: He’s not there all the time but he’s our boss. He’s our guy. He’s our visionary.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: He’s very hands-on.

Question: What’s he like?

Kim Dickens: He’s great. He’s very funny. He’s fantastic. He’s a warm, big guy and he’s a fan of so many shows like himself. We were just talking to Elizabeth [Rodriguez] and he’s such a huge of “Orange is the New Black.” He just knows, you know, he just loves the work.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: He’s very invested in it.

Question: If you could actually meet some of the characters of “The Walking Dead,” which ones…?

Kim Dickens: Sherriff Grimes for me.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Yes, me too, or Norman Reedus. I think that would be a fun one.

Kim Dickens: Is he the character? You mean Daryl? [laughs]

Alycia Debnam-Carey: I mean Daryl or Norman [Reedus] I like! You know what I mean. [laughs]

Kim Dickens: Yes, that would be awesome.

Question: How does it feel working in this particular series because the writer is basically competing with himself from 20 years ago and it’s a different story? We’re seeing kind of the beginning and how everything went to hell basically. How does it feel working on something you know is going to end up badly? You have to pretend, oh, it’s just rumors.

Kim Dickens: I think we just really grounded and rooted the show in these characters and these relationships, you know, that are very real and now we just play into that. What would I do to survive? What would I do to figure this out? What is the best choice? As actors we get in there, we pretend. [Alycia laughs] I personally began watching “The Walking Dead” and when I got close to this role I stopped because I didn’t want to have a preconceived idea of what my character was going to know. In fact I was advised that I shouldn’t know any more.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: The discovery was kind of a hard thing. It’s a slow burn and it takes time to reveal itself.

Kim Dickens: It takes the moments of discovery and paranoia, the questioning, and naiveté. We’re in the dark.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: As humans you try to justify anything. Anything abnormal you really try to make it logical, make sense of it. All of those nuances are so important to making this world of discovery real. I think that’s what such an essence of this show, “Fear the Walking Dead.” It’s all about what is coming, the unexpected, and the unknown.

Kim Dickens: The audience is going to be just screaming at us on TV. What are you doing? Don’t do that!

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Yes, yes! It’s got some great little typical light moments. It’s great.

Question: How much were you told about the character in your first season when you started? Were you told everything and how safe did you feel in “The Walking Dead” world?

Alycia Debnam-Carey: It feels like on every show now they’re killing off leads.

Kim Dickens: I was given the basic outline of my character and a lot of back story that really helped me inform her but beyond what happens in the future I don’t really know except when I get the scripts. I’m pretty excited.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: They’re pretty quiet in the scripts, too. They release them only when they need to. That’s the show. [Alycia laughs]

Question: Does the show talk about the official reaction of the government and the politics and stuff like that? Is it part of the show?

Kim Dickens: Is that a spoiler?

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Yes. [laughs]

Kim Dickens: It’s interesting because of what you do look for, you know… The biggest fear for the characters and I think the thing that will plug in with the audiences is the fear that you’re not able to protect yourself. You do turn to your authority figures.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Who do you trust?

Kim Dickens: Yes. Who do you trust and who can you trust and who shows up for these people? It would be interesting to see.

Question: How would you cope? How would you fare?

Kim Dickens: Terribly.

Alycia Debnam-Carey: Badly. I think if there’s anything we’ve actually learned from this show it was, we would not do very well! [laughs]

Fear The Walking Dead premieres on August 23rd! Looking for more conversations with the talent? Here you go:

-Rubén Blades and Mercedes Mason
-Frank Dillane and Creator Dave Erickson
-Cliff Curtis and Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd
-Elizabeth Rodriguez and Lorenzo James Henrie