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Fear the Walking Dead cast say series reboot was tough

Photo credit: AMC
Photo credit: AMC

From Digital Spy

To describe the first eight episodes of Fear the Walking Dead 's rebooted fourth season as "turbulent" would be seriously understating things.

As it returns from a two-month hiatus, the series is down two original cast members – with Frank Dillane as Nick and Kim Dickens as Madison both having made their exit. Now, franchise boss Scott Gimple is promising a "dark" and "heartfelt" concluding half to the season that "runs the gamut" of emotions.

Photo credit: AMC
Photo credit: AMC

Reflecting on the her co-stars' exits, Alycia Debnam-Carey – the only actor to remain from the show's pilot – said: "I'm the only one left! It's been really hard for myself, Colman [Domingo, who's played Strand since the first season finale] and Danay [Garcia, who joined as Luciana in season two] – we've been a family, and really involved in each other's lives."

Fellow series mainstay Domingo admitted that losing both Dillane and Dickens in the first half of the season was "devastating" and added that the overhaul of Fear the Walking Dead – which involved a major time jump and adding several new regulars to the cast – was not a particularly easy process.

Photo credit: AMC
Photo credit: AMC

"I mean, just imagine losing two of your core in one season, and we found out right before we started," Domingo said. "You're losing someone that you're used to working with all the time, and that you enjoy working with so much.

"But you also understand the nature of it, and understand the storytelling. It's a lot of things to process, because you also have to process new people coming in at the same time...

"I'll be very honest with you, the first couple months in our season, we were all doing a balancing act, trying to figure it all out together. It required intense amounts of grace, and patience, and frustration, and being honest about your feelings.

"It sucked sometimes, but I applaud all our efforts, because I think that we really leaned into it in a very beautiful way. But it was very difficult."

Scott Gimple, now overseeing both Fear and The Walking Dead, said that writing out Dillane as Nick Was especially difficult. "Nick was really hard, in every way. I was looking forward to working with Frank, and I enjoyed the little time I got to work with him, and I was amazed with the work that he did do."

Photo credit: AMC
Photo credit: AMC

As one of the series' new additions along with Garret Dillahunt as John Dorie, Maggie Grace as Althea and Jenna Elfman as June, Lennie James applauded Fear's long-standing cast for embracing the show's reformatting.

"I don't think this would've been possible, regardless of how much people wanted it, if it wasn't for the generosity of Alycia and Colman and Danay and Kim and Frank," he said.

"Without their generosity, without their ability to understand that it was a tricky situation, but to take on board and embrace what the possibilities were, and the roles that they had in those possibilities, it would've been a non-starter. We got lucky."

As the dust settles and Fear the Walking Dead continues to dive headfirst into uncharted territory, Debnam-Carey hinted that Alisha in particular will be utterly transformed by the losses she's suffered.

"What's great is that we now get to see Alisha purely as her own character completely," the actress said. "She doesn't have the same ties to her mother and her brother and it's just about her as a woman now.

"That opens up so many new journeys and narratives for her to play out. I'm really excited for what's coming up."

Fear the Walking Dead returns on Sunday (August 12) at 9/8c on AMC in the US, and on Monday, August 13 at 2am and 9pm on AMC on BT TV in the UK.


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