Warning: this story contains major season three spoilers for The Walking Dead. If you haven't seen episode 3.4, step away from the internet...
Speaking to Collider, the woman behind one of The Walking Dead's few remaining characters from Darabont's stunning pilot, Sarah Wayne Callies, gives her views on Lori's exit from the show, filming her last scenes, the fan reaction to her character, and whether a return is on the cards...
On filming Lori’s last scene:
It was pin-drop quiet, through that whole scene. We didn’t close the set. The whole crew was there, and there was a level of concentration and respect and focus, from all 80 people who were there. It was remarkable. It was probably also significant that the entire cast showed up. I finished the scene and, when I came out, there was almost every single member of our cast that had just come to sit and watch and be there. It was important for Chandler [Riggs, who plays Lori’s son Carl], so that he was surrounded by the people that he would be moving on with.
On preparing for that scene with on-screen son Chandler Riggs:
It is an intimate process because Glen lost his mother shortly before this season. I was very aware that this was a scene that he had written about a woman saying goodbye to her son, having just said goodbye to his mother and heard many of those words. With the actual script, we batted ideas and lines back and forth for about two weeks, and what we shot was a combination of those efforts. There were a couple of things that I said that weren’t on the page, but were a product of sitting with Chandler in a room and trying to say goodbye to him.
On when she first learned Lori's fate:
I knew from the get-go that Lori died in the comic books, so I came to this job assuming that she had an expiration date. There was the death of Shane and the death of Lori. To me, those were very difficult things to get around. Frank [Darabont] said, “I’ve never had a leading lady argue her way off the show.”
Frank and I talked a lot about the necessity of Lori dying, and he fought me on it. He said he thought he had a way around it. But, we never got a chance to see how that would work out. Glen [Mazzara] and I talked about it a lot, as well, and not just what that scene would be like, but how we owned that moment through the first two episodes of the season. Originally, there was a different timeline and we had longer to build to that moment. So, when it got shortened, we talked about what we needed to do this, and what pieces had to be in place both for Lori and Carl and for Rick, for his development, later in this season.
On whether she would return to the show for flashback/hallucination appearances:
I think that question has to do with, “Does it serve the story?” I’ve always felt that Lori’s death was something very important to Rick, which drives him crazy. In the comics, part of his madness is not quite being able to shake her. If that serves the story that they’re going to tell going forward, then absolutely. I can’t really envision a time where somebody calls me up and goes, “Hey, we wrote something for you,” and I go, “No.” I don’t quite see that happening. At the same time, we’ve taken so many departures that, if they feel it would be foolish for Rick to be seeing ghosts, I’m okay with that, too. Anything that serves the story.
Read the full, lengthy interview over at Collider.
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