The Walking Dead Q&A — Lauren Cohan on the Callbacks to Glenn and Beth in the Extended 10th Season Premiere
Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie on The Walking Dead, talks about encountering Negan, the power of reflecting on characters who have died and how young Hershel evokes memories of Glenn.
Q: Maggie has a new weapon — how good are you in real life with a bow and arrow?
A: Funnily enough, the first acting role I ever had was a bow maker, and I practiced ad nauseam at that time. I had had quite a few years' gap between then and now, but I think archery is one of those things that you have a real muscle memory for. Things like that, the only way to really be truly good is to practice a lot. Things like fencing and archery just use a muscle group that you don't use that much in normal life and it can be a bit unbalanced on your body, so I definitely had to do a lot of things that were separate to my normal routine.
Watch: Inside the Extended 10th Season Premiere
Q: How different was it filming the extended Season 10 episodes versus normal episodes?
A: We definitely had a lot fewer people, yeah, but the essence was the same for us, in terms of the stakes were very high. Obviously the stakes are really high for Maggie coming back in and seeing Negan again, so that's kind of as high as you get for her.
But in terms of the logistics of our working day... we're all getting tested, we're all taking so many measures and production took so many measures to keep us safe. So... you feel like you're shooting a sequence of bottle episodes — which we have done on the show before, which have been much more concentrated character-y episodes — and I think every actor will attest to how much fun they are to get to sink your teeth into, no pun intended.
Q: What was the first encounter with Negan like in this episode, given the terrible history between him and Maggie?
A: I think a lot of what happens in this episode is that Maggie tries to navigate how much to reveal because the revelation of things and the allowing of certain feelings can definitely unravel you, and I think that she's had to be very careful to stay strong and stay forward-thinking. But, as we see, she does open up to Daryl a bit about what she's been through. However, when she sees Negan, I don't think she can stop to speak or stop to think too much about it all just yet because there's a definite amount of resentment still brewing there. That's how I felt at least. You know, sometimes it's just like, "Don't get me started. Don't even let me start to feel anything about this." But it's a tricky situation because she's obviously got to put parenthood first and being a good and healthy role model for her son, so she's got a lot to balance here — finding a healthy and safe home and doing her part as she reintegrates with the group to keep people safe. And a lot of that might require her putting her own feelings aside and thinking of the whole, so we'll see if that works and how long it lasts.
Q: You had a couple heart-to-heart discussions in this episode, with Daryl and Kelly. What did you think of those conversations and what did you take away from them?
A: I really like how Angela [Kang] gives characters the opportunity to reflect on people that we've lost, and I think that that's been happening more and more in these last couple seasons and it's given the characters the ability to move forward because they've had the space to process the past and to be able to speak about their loved ones. As we just said, it's too raw in some ways to think or to dwell on more recent events, but I think that Maggie's ability to use her experience with losing her sister to support and bolster a new friend is very important. And it's something that all the people that we see, and the community that we see, need to connect to each other and to be a team. You've got to connect and have each other's back, and I think it is wonderful that Angela has included these conversations. It obviously feels really good to reveal some of where Maggie's been because she's been gone for a long time, and it feels really good as Lauren to be able to do a beautiful scene like I did with Kelly and to have this scene with Norman [Reedus] because it is like coming back from a long time away being welcomed by your brother. And that's what you want. You want that comfort and you want somebody that, without saying very much, gives you the encouragement to, in this case, come home.
Q: What was it like acting with Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus again for the first time since your return to the show?
A: It was great. It just felt like the perfect way to come home. It was sort of required, I think, for Maggie to open up with people that she trusted and she had a long history with. And it's important because she's bringing a lot of people in and she wants to pay the respects to her old friends who run this community by connecting with them and introducing them to her new friends. And then, for us, it just feels like no time has gone by and you always cherish the opportunity to have meaningful scenes with any of the O.G. and your friends... Norman and I just had such a good amount of time to reflect on things and to talk about what's coming and how we wanted to just give the season everything that we've got. And you step back into those shoes and go into battle and start walking the road and it's good to have friends by your side.
Q: It was so nice to hear the names Hershel and Beth said in this episode. How did it feel to say those names and remind viewers of the late great Scott Wilson and Emily Kinney?
A: It was really nice because we went so far in talking about them. We talked about her Nana that we've never really known about in the Greene family. And then moreover you get to a point, kind of like I was saying before but more specifically, you get so used to pushing onward that you're not expecting to have the opportunity to talk about these people that were so much a part of who you are as a character and to talk about Beth, Shawn, Dad, all in relation to the next generation. It just felt like it came at the perfect time, and it is not just that it came at the perfect time in the show but that it came at the perfect time for Maggie because she had the reason to share those stories again and to relive the stories and to really honor the memories of those people. She had the opportunity and the responsibility to let her son know who he came from and who he's named after, and it's a very sentimental episode in so many ways because of those family members still being with her at just the moments that she needed to be inspired and informed by them, obviously with Kelly and with her son.
Q: What's it like playing a mom for the first time?
A: It's wonderful. Oh God, where do you even start? It's funny. It's like when we got to the end of filming "Home Sweet Home," I just thought, "If this is not an ode to the single mother, I don't know what is." I felt really excited for everything we have begun and everything that we will continue to explore because it clarifies things so much when you think about protecting someone who looks up to you for cues to the entire world and for that to be in such an unusual world as well. But most importantly just my sense of responsibility feels incredibly clear with this whole journey and I'm mostly excited for everything that I'm going to get to learn, and working with Kien Michael Spiller has been so much fun. We've only had a couple of episodes so far but he's just such a bright kid and he's such a conversationalist. He keeps things so buoyant and he's just got a lot of curiosity and he's got a lot of good ideas. We've just had a really fun time bonding like that and it's good to see things through children's eyes, especially for an actor. It's so important to remember that part, and I know that part of the reason that I look forward to having kids of my own is just to sort of reignite that part of childhood that's in all of us. So it's nice to have the opportunity to do that for Maggie because who doesn't need their child's self reignited?
Q: Seeing Maggie's son Hershel certainly conjures up memories of Glenn. Was it purposeful to have young Hershel wear a baseball cap like Glenn did early on in the show?
A: Yeah. So we really wanted to have a nod to Glenn because one of the things that was most important to Angela is to give this sort of shimmer of Glenn still living on in his son and it was important to have a sense of mischief and a sense of a bit of a twinkle in young Hershel, as well as — which to me was just a final beautiful string to the bow, no pun intended — the baseball hat, because he's sort of dressed like his son. And, whether or not Maggie realizes this — I think that subconsciously even she may have sort of dressed him like her husband — it was just very impactful for me to see him like that. And especially after the relief of reuniting with Hershel, to be in the shipping container, there was a moment when I actually just held the hat and everything came full circle and the beginning of Glenn and meeting him and his heroic willingness to put himself in harm's way and to put himself in danger and to be this ray of light and this beacon. I think that it's such a talisman for her to have that again. She needs it. She's going to need that hope and that optimism for the adventure that sits before them.
