The season three premiere of The Walking Dead airs Sunday in the US, so at New York Comic Con over the weekend, the cast were on hand to discuss the new episodes.
"It's a family drama set in hell," said leading man Andrew Lincoln, who plays the band of survivor's leader Officer Rick Grimes.
Lincoln explained how season three will be taking a marked departure from the past two seasons, which covered about two months of the group's experience in their post-apocalyptic world.
"It was very linear, it was about discovering the world and finding the family, a safe haven; the second season was very much about a struggle for leadership and the third season is a clash of two camps," Lincoln said. "It's very much about opening up the show and realizing it's not just this group of survivors, there are other people out there, and they are more frightening, more dangerous, than the threat of Walkers."
Walkers is the show's term for zombies, a word that doesn't exist in their fictional world.
At the end of season two, the audience learned that anyone can become a Walker – it's not just a bite or scratch that spreads the mystery virus. Producer Gale Ann Hurd said that was planned from the beginning and explained how each Walker is an integral part of the cast.
"For each zombie makeup, there's a rationale, who the person was, how they died, were they bitten? Were they scratched? Was it by a love one? Was it not?" Hurd said. "I think that really makes the difference. It's not just a factory – we'll get someone in here, we'll throw a few things on them – each zombie is a character as much as the cast."
In season three, the seasonal temperature drop means slower-moving Walkers and a chance for the cast to adapt and change to their new surroundings which include some new, and deserted, faces.
Comic book fan favorites The Governor (David Morrissey) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) are joining the crew and Merle Dixon, Daryll's antagonistic brother, will be back after a season-long absence.
The new characters suggest that the show may be inching closer to the comic book it inspired, but the comic's creator Robert Kirkman said the ability to take his comic storyline in a different direction is one of the joys for him in adapting the series to television.
"I like that fans of the comic book series never really know what we're doing," Kirkman said. "They can be watching an episode and be watching the events unfold and then when the events are over, be like 'Oh yeah yeah, that was from the comic,' but the way we arrived at it changed things to where they didn't really expect that to be happening."
