The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub speaks with
The Walking Dead: Dead City
‘s Lauren Cohan, Scott Gimple, and Gaius Charles for Season 2 at New York Comic Con.
Starring Cohan, Charles, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, in
Dead City
Season 2, the stakes are even higher as the war for Manhattan rages on.
The TWD trio discuss what fans can expect from Season 2, when they can expect it to drop, and Cohan shares what it was like to direct for the first time.

No con experience would be complete without The Walking Dead. At this year’s New York Comic Con, The Walking Dead: Dead City showed up and out when they announced fans would be returning to the TWD Universe for Season 2 in the spring of 2025. Before they hit that Main Stage, though, Collider’s Steve Weintraub had the opportunity to sit down with Chief Content Officer Scott Gimple, co-star, producer, and director Lauren Cohan, and Gaius Charles, who plays the reformed antagonist Perlie Armstrong.

In Season 2, Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Maggie (Cohan) are back in their new stomping grounds. Negan has reunited with Lucille and looks to be back to his menacing ways, but Maggie hasn’t given up hope for him. As the survivors fight to stake claim over Manhattan, the two enemies-turned-allies find themselves on opposing sides.

At the convention, Gimple, Cohan, and Charles reveal their panel secrets to us and tease what we can expect from Season 2. They hint at more TWD staples — lots of explosions, fighting, and more Walkers — and diving even deeper into new characters and new factions. Cohan also discusses what it was like directing Episode 6 and why it’s her favorite episode of the season. For all this and more, check out our full NYCC conversation in the video above or in the transcript below.

‘Dead City’ Leaves the Forests of Georgia Far Behind (For Now?)

COLLIDER: I’ve watched the first season of your show, and I am a fan. I really think the change of location for both shows has really reinvigorated the franchise. I’m assuming you hear that from fans, or am I alone on this?

LAUREN COHAN: There are plenty of places I would like to see our characters navigate that are dangerous. Being in New York and everything that affords us, there’s something of vintage about it and something a bit throwback.

SCOTT GIMPLE: People love these characters, and we wanted to do something new. We didn’t want to necessarily change the characters — I mean, the characters are always gonna go through changes — but to put them in such a different context, and especially with each other, with these pairings, in the different shows. It’s the place, and it’s the pairings that make it different.

Look, I’ve seen every episode of The Walking Dead . There are only so many times I can see characters walking through the same forest.

COHAN: And it was the same forest.

GIMPLE: I have bad news for you. That is the next show, characters walking through the forest.

[Laughs] By the way, again, I’m a fan. It’s just the change of location adds a lot.

GIMPLE: With both shows there are just whole other cultures in there and different challenges. It does change the characters a lot, while they still are the people we love.

Related ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Season 2 Will Feel Like a “Reset” Negan and Maggie are back in 2025.

This is gonna run after the panel, so what are you actually announcing or showing or doing today?

COHAN: We’re announcing that Season 2 airs in the spring, maybe March, and then we’re gonna have a riotously good time. But we can act as if we already know that.

GIMPLE: We see you in action. There are some photos from set.

COHAN: We see a clip of Jeffrey [Dean Morgan], we see some fighting.

GIMPLE: I did not know there was going to be a quiz.

You didn’t know that I would actually ask you what’s on the panel. I’m so sorry.

GIMPLE: I was told there would be no fact-checking.

This is not a Republican debate. I’m sorry, sir. Just remember, everyone, please vote. I know everyone is like, “Don’t mix in politics.”

GIMPLE: No, voting is good.

COHAN: Let your voice be heard.

Exactly.

‘Dead City’ Season 2 Has a “Real John Carpenter Vibe”

What do you guys want to tease about Season 2?

GIMPLE: It’s an expansion. It takes Season 1, and it cranks it up in every way. We see more of the world, and through the world, we see more characters.

COHAN: We see some pretty greedy, grounded dynamics. We see some hard storylines, some real character, and the world that we got to start developing in Season 1. We really dig deep. We have the introduction of a bunch of groups that we sort of tease and allude to. We really go there in Season 2.

GAIUS CHARLES: I feel like if you’re gonna do a show in New York or about the apocalypse in New York, you want to see New York, and so this season, we get a lot more of that, as well.

GIMPLE: There are places where we do get into that real John Carpenter vibe both in place and character and then we go deeper with these characters. These characters went through the ringer in Season 1, but we go much deeper with them in Season 2. They have to face certain things about themselves and each other. It’s just turned up in so many ways.

Image via AMC

When you’re making the first season of a show, you’re building the infrastructure of, “How do we actually make the show?” It’s different than the original Walking Dead, so what did you learn making the first season that you applied to the second season?

GIMPLE: There was a reinvention in the way that we made it this season. We made it in a different place this season. We shot the first season in New Jersey and New York. This was shot in Boston.

Was it because of tax reasons or is it just the location added something?

COHAN: We got so much more out of shooting in Boston. We really wanted iconic locations that would be representative of the grand scale of New York, and those are really expensive. We were able to find places to shoot in Boston that were stunning and that we had a lot of control and access to, and that allowed us to tell the show at a scale that befits the grandness of a New York story.

I read that it was Taunton that you shot, but was it all over?

COHAN: One of the places. We had a really epic location that served as Maggie and Hershel’s home, this old mill that was completely derelict and incredible. It was so hard to find. Then we shot in Lowell, Massachusetts, and we had access to this cathedral. That is one of the main reasons that we went. We saw this place.

GIMPLE: Beautiful location. And I will say Eli [Jorne] worked with Bernardo Trujillo. Oh my god, I’ve known him for only eight years, but Bernardo, he’s our production designer, and the builds that we were able to do this season of New York locations are remarkable. When I was on set, I was just stumbling around looking at everything as if I had never been on a set before. It really blew me away what we were able to pull off in Boston.

Those practical builds just add so much physicality to a scene. Like The Book of Carol , the fact that they’re filming in France just adds so much. Again, it’s just not the same forest in Georgia.

GIMPLE: You keep disparaging forests.

COHAN: Facts are facts.

GIMPLE: I was in a village two hours north, I believe, of Madrid a couple of weeks ago, and we’re shooting this little ancient village, and I’m like, “Okay, we’re not in snow anymore.”

Lauren Cohan Directed Her Favorite Season 2 Episode
Image via AMC

Lauren, you directed Episode 6. How did you end up with that one, and what do you specifically want to tease about your episode?

COHAN: I ended up with Episode 6 by pure chance. I knew the best thing would not be to direct at the beginning of the season because we’re getting into playing the role, and we had our producing director and another director. We were shooting in giant blocks this year, so we had a block of two, a block of three, and then another block of three. We had to be able to break it up in a certain way. But really, it is pure luck that I got this particular episode, and I say that because, on paper, it was my favorite episode of the season and I didn’t know until closer to the time that would be my directing episode. It has really meaty action, but it also has a lot of quieter, interactive storyline between characters that was very emotional and sensitive, and sort of my sweet spot with what I would want to do with directing. I just really felt like it was the perfect thing for me to start this in.

Gaius and I have a lot in that episode, and everyone I worked with was able to support me in prepping far ahead of time. I wasn’t shooting my episode until three months into being there, and I was prepping four months before. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

CHARLES: You made it look very easy.

COHAN: It was awesome.

Explosions, Walkers, Night Shoots — Oh My!
Image via AMC

For the two of you, thus far on this show, what has been the toughest shot or sequence to film and why?

COHAN: It’s a good question. When I directed. I’m kidding.

CHARLES: I think there were some night shoots that were just kind of tough just because it’s cold, it’s late. One of them was there is a fight sequence…

COHAN: Oh, in the premiere!

CHARLES: You’ll see, but there are Walkers, there’s just all kinds of craziness happening. We probably filmed that until, like, two or three o’clock in the morning.

COHAN: And it was still winter. It’s just a lot of when there’s a lot of elements. We had a large amount of extras, we had this giant fight sequence to get right and try to capture, and the sun is gonna come up when it’s gonna come up. Those days on The Walking Dead are so funny. You say all the inserts at the end, so that as the sun is up, you can’t tell that you’re in daylight now. But that’s always the toughest part.

CHARLES: There were a lot of explosions, like the boat sequences, the fire. There’s a lot of pyrotechnics. There’s a lot to see in this episode.

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 will premiere in 2025. In the meantime, binge a rewatch of Season 1 on AMC+.

Maggie and Negan travel into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan long ago cut off from the mainland. The city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world.

Watch on AMC