‘The Walking Dead’: Ethan Embry Talks Season 6 Premiere Episode Events

On Sunday night, “The Walking Dead” introduced a new member of the Alexandria family – Carter, played by “Grace and Frankie” star Ethan Embry.

(Spoiler alert! This interview discusses major plot details from the Season 6 premiere of “The Walking Dead.” If you haven’t watched, bookmark this link to come back to later.)

Ethan signed on to join the AMC drama back in the spring, and had to keep his involvement in the show a secret for months. At Comic-Con, though, fans got their first glimpse of Ethan’s character in the trailer for the new season. On Sunday night, at the conclusion of the episode, “First Time Again,” the actor’s real role was revealed – Carter stood for those at Alexandria not ready for the outside world, and against Rick.

Lennie James as Morgan Jones, Ethan Embry as Carter and Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes (AMC)

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Although his character eventually got on board and became a last-second ally to Andrew Lincoln’s character, even shaking Rick’s hand after seeing the plan to eliminate a nearby threat — a herd in the thousands that had accumulated in a nearby quarry — roll out, Carter didn’t play it safe. As he tried to head to the front to help out with the herd they were directing away from Alexandria, Carter wasn’t paying close enough attention and was grabbed by a walker in the woods. He was bit in the face, and while screaming bloody murder — screams that sent the herd off of their designated path, and in his direction — Rick cut Carter’s suffering short.

While on a break from shooting Season 2 of Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie,” Ethan spoke with Access Hollywood about his big, but final episode of “The Walking Dead.”

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AccessHollywood.com: Did you watch the show beforehand?
Ethan Embry: Oh yeah, big fan. Fully caught up. Big fan. Wanted to be on that show since the very, very first episode.

Access: You’re a busy guy — was part of the pitch wanting to bring you on board because it was a bit of a ruse for the fans? I [assumed you were] going to be around for a while and then… I was shocked.
Ethan: I knew that I was going to die. I knew that it was for only one episode, but I didn’t know that they were gonna play up me joining as much as they did… it’s really nice. As a fan, it feels really good, and also, like if you think of it in the sense of good TV, you know? As a fan of the show, watching characters that I’d grown to love and become attached to, when they die, it hurts, man. There’s this hangover period, and it’s fun and it’s exciting, but it hurts that morning. But if you introduce this new character and you make everybody think that he’s going to be around for a while, [and then] you bring the hook out, I actually really like the way they did it because there’s no emotional attachment to me. It’s just purely shock. Pure shock.

Access: Most of your scenes are opposite [the character] Rick. If you’re a fan of the show, that had to have been an amazingly cool experience, to read the script and you’re like, ‘Oh, another scene with Rick. And Rick again’?
Ethan: Yeah… I wish I could’ve done a scene with Carrrrrrllll. … But even outside of how great it was to be in those scenes with Andy, just also to be able to share how he works, you know? I gained a lot of respect for him. He’s a really hard worker and he’s a humble actor and he’s really selfless.

Access: How so? Does he just make himself really available to everyone?
Ethan: Yeah, very available, and also, it comes into the thing of feeling ‘a part of,’ because I very easily could have been the new kid at school that had to prove himself. They know that I’m not around long, and they went out of their way to make me feel welcome and in on the conversation. And they don’t have to. And so, feeling that, coming from them, it enabled me to open up and feel comfortable and free and, I don’t know, you wish that it could always be like that because it’s going to make the product better, and I think that Andy – Andy knows that, so he goes out of his way to make you feel that. That’s the sense that I got.

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Access: You had a friend on set… one of your former ‘Once Upon a Time’ co-stars. Did you and Sonequa [Martin-Green] get to catch up down there at all? Or was it you’re in and out very fast, a lot of hard work, that kind of stuff?
Ethan: I was in and out, and we don’t have any scenes, just the two of us. I mean, she was in the town hall meeting and the last scene when we go out to execute the plan. But one of the things I remember saying to her, was bringing up how great the environment is, and her just like, ‘Yeah, I kind of struck gold. It’s kind of a beautiful place to be, isn’t it?’ So it was really good to see her…

Access: That’s awesome. So what do you think Carter’s fatal flaw was? What do you think he lacked that sort of led to his demise?
Ethan: To me, he’s been living inside of that bubble. He’s been living inside those walls and so he hasn’t had a chance to progress and mature like the rest of the family. And so he’s sort of had this lucky existence for the last two years, and his first real exposure to the new world, in probably a really long time — he just wasn’t ready for it. There’s that line, I think I say it to Rick – ‘We’re not ready’… because this episode is so big, there’s so many walkers and it’s not being thrown into the fire, it’s being chucked into a volcano, and he just isn’t ready for it. I think that his fatal flaw is the situation more than anything to do with him.

Access: How many people do you think there were dressed as walkers?
Ethan: Hundreds and hundreds. I think there were at least 400 or so the day that we were up there. … [That] wasn’t even the big day for the episode, which was surreal because they’re all walking down the road and you can hear them shuffling, and they’re all made up and they’ve all gone to the school to learn how to walk. After ‘Action,’ they all start walking and they’re in their character, and they’re shuffling and shuffling – hundreds of them – and it’s terrifying and creepy and then there’s ‘Cut,’ and they all start talking, like, ‘Yo, all right. Cool, man. Hey’ (laughs).

Access: How long did you have to do that scene where you character is screaming after he’s been bitten? Did they do a ton of takes of that? Your poor voice.
Ethan: (Laughs) It’s really technical, so we definitely did it a good amount to make sure we got it, but I don’t know, I’ve always been proud of my early speed metal years, of my teenage [times], so my voice can handle some screaming, you know? And if I want to be like a male scream queen, I better be able to scream a couple takes, right?

Access: I remember some of the cast told me they used to play Heads Up on set in between takes. Did you get involved in any of the fun?
Ethan: Yeah, they introduced me to Heads Up. I’d never seen it before, which again, talk about surreal, Michonne playing Heads Up with Abraham — it’s, yeah… as a fan, it was a great world to have access to for a couple weeks.

Access: Have you gone back to ‘Grace and Frankie’ yet to film Season 2? Have you guys started back?
Ethan: Yeah, I guess we’re 10 episodes in to the second season now.

Access: How did the two [schedules] sort of work?
Ethan: I did ‘The Walking Dead’… [It was] maybe May or something like that, maybe April that I went and did that, so we started up ‘Grace and Frankie’ in July.

Access: That must have been a complete just–
Ethan: Completely. Yeah. … That’s one of the things that I love about ‘Grace and Frankie’ is the character Coyote, he’s just this, wants to be loved, wants to be forgiven and doesn’t want to make any more mistakes, you know? And he’s kind of a dummy. He’s a puppy dog. He’s like the human embodiment of a Labrador puppy, and so if I do take anything home with me after working on ‘Grace and Frankie,’ it’s that lightness. I tend to take things home so ‘The Walking Dead,’ it was great to just do for a few weeks. I know a lot of the actors out there also take things home and to do that for nine months must be really hard. I have a lot of respect for them.

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Catch Ethan Embry in Season 1 of “Grace and Frankie,” streaming now on Netflix. Season 2 is in production now. He can also be seen in “The Devil’s Candy,” which recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. “The Walking Dead” continues Sunday at 9 PM ET/PT on AMC.

— Jolie Lash