Castin Herschel, Shane alive or dead?
AMC has begun to roll out their usual stream of interviews – “dispatches from the set” – in anticipation of The Walking Dead season 2. I extracted some of the more interesting bits which find creator Robert Kirkman ruminating on the casting of Herschel and some of the differences between the comic book and the series.
Q: Previously, you announced that Hershel’s farm would play a big factor in Season 2. What can you tell us about that?
A: Season 1 focused on Atlanta so much, and we got to see desolate Atlanta and how this stuff affects cities. And that was really cool, and a lot of cool visuals come from that. But rather than repeat ourselves we’re going out into the woods. We’re gonna see a lot of rural roads and open fields see how bad things are as you get away from the city centers. It’s definitely different enough that Season 2 stands on its own and has its own thing. And a lot of that comes from Hershel’s farm and seeing these characters. All I can say is it’s gonna be great, and the casting on Season 2 is going to be as pitch-perfect as the casting on Season 1. I can’t wait for everyone to meet Hershel.
Q: Any hints who will be playing him?
A: We were looking really hard at Charlie Sheen for everyone, but he can’t play multiple roles. Turns out he can’t even play one, so, I don’t know. [Laughs]
Q: How does the fact that Shane’s still alive change the story since he died so early in the comic?
A: While we’re mapping out this arc and figuring out this story, we’ll pull something in from the comic and then we’ll go, “OK, so how does Shane existing change this? What does Shane bring to the situation? What’s going on with his character at this point and how does it affect this thing that’s already existed.” It’s really neat for me to treat The Walking Dead TV show as an alternate dimension where Shane lived, and there’s all this different stuff happening because of that. Shane really throws a wrench in a lot of stuff.
Q: Are you now reluctant to kill him off?
A: Yeah absolutely. It’s hard thinking about killing any character. If they’re good characters, there are always more scenes to write, but this is the nature of things: There are zombies around. People gots to die. And after getting to know Jon Bernthal and see his portrayal of Shane, it’s not an easy decision. He’s past his expiration date by comic book standards, but Shane is by no means rotten. I think he’s remaining fresh for a while. We’ll see.
Read the full interview right here.
Source: AMC
