1. You must love what you do
“I have had the make-up people come up to me while I’m lying on burning-hot asphalt, and ask if it’s OK to pour a bucket of fake blood on top of me. I’ve been drenched in buckets of water, and told to be careful when I fall on the ground because there are snakes in the grass. I’ve been asked to fall into bags of trash, taken beatings from foam weapons, and watched my own head explode. It’s definitely not glamorous.”
2. Prepare to get messy
“One of my favourite scenes was when I got to devour a horse. The production crew just set this fake disembowelled horse in front of me and told me to go for it. There were pieces I could pull out, things I could chew on, and I was just covered in fake blood by the end. A lot of times they use barbecue or turkey legs for us to gnaw on, so we can actually eat.”
3. There’s an art to walking the walk
“If you do a pattern or repeat anything, it doesn’t work. It needs to appear chaotic and unpractised. The actors are told a lot about how the body works, which muscles connect. ‘If this bone were not in its socket, where would the arm hang?’ – that sort of anatomy. And when you walk, your feet have to drag; walkers don’t have the strength to really lift them. You get caught on things.”
4. It’s good to lose yourself
“Walkers have no control over their urges. They get hungry and they have to eat – it’s their sole driving force. What makes us human is that we can assess a situation and figure out the best way to deal with it, whether it’s to run, hide, harm or help. Walkers don’t think, they simply act.”
5. Conserve your energy
“Don’t exert yourself too much when you’re not in front of the camera. You’re already hot and tired, so trying to do much more than sit in a chair or lie on the floor would just make it unbearable. Not to mention you never want to do anything that could mess up your make-up. A lot of the featured walkers are in the make-up chair for several hours every morning. I have seen people rest their head on a table to try to relax, and when they wake up, their face is stuck to the table.”
6. Prepare for solitude
“When I was playing the jawless zombie in the first season, I’d taken my tray at lunch and sat down to try to eat. One of the main cast was sitting across from me. When I sat down, he got up and walked away. He approached me later and said I looked so disgusting that he couldn’t eat.”