When Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors were trapped in a Terminus train before ‘The Walking Dead’ season 4 ended, the group leader was noticeably confident that they will triumph over these struggles, saying: “They’re screwing with the wrong people.”
His confidence was unwavering during the past seasons that he was able to promise their new Hilltop friends that he would get rid of the Saviors, although he was unaware of the number of Saviors there were as well as the threats they bring with them.
Finally, before ‘The Walking Dead’ season 6 ended, Rick began to realize the actual danger out there.
Fast forward to the latest season and Andrew Lincoln’s character has finally become conscious of the days that should be filled with fear and terror.
“As the season finished, the story was about Rick being broken,” Lincoln explained, “and realizing that basically everything that he thought has been turned upside down in the space pretty of much of a day. The world that he fought and strove for so long has irrevocably changed.”
Due to these changes, viewers could expect a new Rick Grimes in future episodes, if the beloved character will not be the deadly target in ‘The Walking Dead’ season 7 premiere in October.
“You meet a man who’s powerless, terrified for his own life and his son’s family’s life, and everybody else beside him,” Lincoln explained about his character’s thoughts as villain Negan chose the target to hit his deadly bat with. “And he realizes that there’s a new world, a much bigger, scarier, and formidable world.”
The cast of ‘The Walking Dead’ was further thrust into the harshness of real life during the season 7 filming when they had to deal with the scene in which Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, starts to hit one of the survivors.
Even for Lincoln’s mother, she felt terrible for the 43-year-old actor to return to filming and be subjected to such experience again.
“I remember my mother said to me, ‘That’s going to be quite a challenge to get back into that state that you were straight after a break,’” Lincoln recalled. “And I just said, ‘Thanks, mom. That’s kind of my job, thank you.’”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the English actor attempted to assure fans that ‘The Walking Dead’ season 7 premiere will be “a hysterical episode” complete with “so many laughs.”
On the other hand, the cast members of the award-winning TV series had a hard time, having to say goodbye to one of their cast mates after Negan’s deadly bat scene.
“Norman [Reedus] put it very eloquently,” Lincoln shared. “He said, ‘You know, somebody’s going to lose their job at the end of that.’ It’s a big deal, man. It’s a big deal. It’s a family on set.”
The London native also shared similar sentiments with the cast and production team, saying that Negan’s slaughter will bring on a new dynamic.
“It’s just a continuation of a much bigger story,” says Lincoln. “We’re heading towards a bigger end point.”
‘The Walking Dead’ season 7 premiere is set for Oct. 23 on AMC.
