This was sent to us from AMC.
British actor David Morrissey, who plays The Governor on AMC’s The Walking Dead, talks about some unexpected overlaps with his character’s tastes and explains how the role finally earned him some respect at home.
Q: This is your first season on the show. Was there a learning curve to get up to speed with The Walking Dead?
A: I was very nervous about joining the show on the first day, but once I got there it’s been a joy ever since. There’s an element about needing to know about the conditions: the heat and the humidity and the snakes and bugs and ticks. You have to have a little bit of an outward bound course before you start filming. Those things are different for me, because normally it’s like, “How do I get to the canteen.” But I do think those crazy brutal conditions add to the show — because the show’s all about that. It isn’t a comfortable place to be and that’s important.
Q: How much of the Governor’s backstory have you sketched out?
A: I feel that the Governor is someone who before the event was a pretty middle-management type guy. He didn’t have the status before, but now he’s walking that tight rope of leadership about what he needs to do as a leader. It’s all relatively new to him.
Q: As a British actor, is there anything you do to prevent lapsing back into your accent on-set?
A: I stay in accent as much as I can. We have a crew of locals, and whenever I go get my coffee or groceries I can hear the accent. So the accent is around me all the time and that’s been an advantage.
Q: Do you ever take the Governor home with you?
A: The Governor would be a pretty tough character to take home — I don’t think my wife would like that. He’s a pretty intense man to play and there is a darkness to him, which can get inside your head sometimes. Thankfully, I have quite a long drive from the location back here to Atlanta, so I often put on a bit of rock music on the way home — the Rolling Stones or whatever — and that tends to get the character out of my head.
