LM: I’m a newbie to this whole thing. The Walking Dead is the first thing I ever did. A good friend of mine said, “You look like a zombie without any makeup. You really ought to put in for it.” I went, “Well, gee, thanks.” But he had done a couple of extra acting stints and he had a ball doing it. So I told my wife, “What the heck?” I put in my information thinking it would never happen and two minutes later I got a phone call. Greg Nicotero [Walking Dead makeup effects supervisor], he said, “You were one that has ‘The look.’”
EW: What’s your favorite memory from the shoot?
LM: It’s an overall memory. I was amazed at how nice Greg Nicotero and his crew from KNB were, in making us up and everything. Frank Darabont [Walking Dead executive producer and pilot director], he was an incredibly busy man. But he’d stop right in the middle of whatever he was doing to answer any question you had and to go out of his way to be friendly. And that’s not the way I thought directors were. The biggest memory? We all had the same thing. I live here, but it was incredibly hot that month. We had an index temperature during the tank scene that was 105. And I believe in that particular scene, I was wearing a sweater. It was like, “Okay, when they go “Cut!” we start stripping as best we can. Because it was hot. But it gave us all that dead look, I’m telling you. So it worked out good.
EW: What’s the secret to playing a zombie?
LM: Well, what Frank kept telling us was: “Quit trying to be everybody you see. Do it your way. If I see a horde coming down a street, I don’t want to see two people together. Because if everybody looks the same, I’ve got to cut and do it all over again.”
EW: Are you surprised by the success of the show?
LM: This has become a phenomenon. I think the top people knew this was going to happen. But all of us were surprised at how this thing has taken off. And even with us, we’re all going back and forth: “Man, that hour flew by!” We’re surprised you put us on the cover. But my picture was inside the Bullseye two weeks ago. There’s some good-looking guy in the middle [Joe Manganiello from True Blood] and I’m on the right side of him. People were telling me I was right beside the middle. I said, “No, that’s me in the middle!” [Laughs]
Source: Entertainment Weekly
