Comic Book Resources Robert Kirkman Interview
This is a 2 part interview combined for your The Walking Dead Pleasure from the good folks (specifically interviewer Josh Wigler) over at Comic Book Resources!
CBR News: Congratulations on a successful first season, Robert. The folks at home seem to be enjoying the series: the ratings have been phenomenal and reviews have been great as well. Before the show began, I know that you were routinely asked about how it feels to see your creation come to life, and you had to give the same “surreal” answer every time. Now that the first season is over and the show has really proven itself, has that answer sort of changed to “relieved,” in a way?
Robert Kirkman: You know, I don’t know. I guess to a certain extent I’m relieved without ever really realizing that I was tense and hoping that it would do well. Going into it, I wanted it to get picked up for a second season and I wanted it to do well, but it got made and it was good. There’s really nothing you can do past that. I’ve had it beaten in to me that no one can really explain why a TV show is successful: sometimes things catch on and sometimes they don’t. I always knew we were one bad news story away from politicians getting involved and our show getting pulled off the air, so I was a little worried about the subject matter, and there’s just so many moving parts in television that it never really occurred to me to even bother hoping for a hit. I just kind of sat back and said, “Cool, here’s the TV show.”
But seeing that it’s actually technically the highest rated drama on cable, that you can actually say that about this, it’s ridiculous. The fact that it was on the cover of “Entertainment Weekly” – I don’t really think “surreal” applies anymore. I think “stupid” is the only thing that makes sense. [Laughs] I don’t know. It’s been a good year. It’s been really crazy.
This series has been your life for the past several months. When the show was first developing, did you have any idea how much it would take over your life? You’ve been getting flown around all over the place in promotion of the series – where did you go in October, was it France?
Yeah, the promotion kind of took me by surprise. I was told that I was going to be doing a little bit here and a little bit there, and I kept getting calls saying, “Hey Robert, can you do this? Hey Robert, can you do that?” It was very flattering that AMC and Fox International thought of me as someone they could go to for promotional stuff, but holy hell, if I’m ever on an airplane again, it’ll be too soon! [Laughs] It was rough. In October, I was traveling more days than than I was at home, which didn’t go over too well with the family. But I got through it and I was able to get some work done along the way, because I’m able to work on planes. But international flights are not fun.
Well, from that standpoint, you’re probably one of the few people on Earth who isn’t so upset that the show won’t be coming back for a little while.
[Laughs] Well, it’s weird, because for me, I’m already talking with [director, producer and writer Frank Darabont] about the second season. Work on the second season has already happened. When I see people going, “Oh my God, what about the second season?” Well, we’re working on it! We’re working on it as fast as we can. We’re knee deep into it. I don’t know what more we could do, other than just doing it as a reality show and start filming tomorrow. But no, there are no breaks in TV. I don’t think it’ll really start getting crazy until after Christmas, but there’s conference calls and all kinds of stuff still going on right now.
Looking at this past season specifically, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anybody who was reading what both you and Frank Darabont had been saying in terms of deviating from the source material: if there’s a story that seems cool and worthwhile but it’s off the path from the comics, you’ll go and explore it, as long as you get back on the path later. There were a few of those deviations this season, with the Center for Disease Control in the season finale being one of the biggest and most memorable. That one came up because the CDC really exists in Atlanta, right?
Yeah, that’s one of those dumb Robert Kirkman-not-taking-the-time-to-do-his-research-properly things. Whatever! Who cares? [Laughs] But that was definitely Frank going, “Hey, the CDC is in Atlanta,” and me going, “What?” It was a cool addition to the show. Everything that diverged off the path set forth by the comic was a cool addition. There was a lot of great character work that happened in the last two episodes. At the same time, there are still a lot of bits that were pulled directly from the comic books. It’s going to continue to do that. Season two, which we’re mapping out right now, I know that Frank has spoken publicly about Hershel’s farm. But there’s always going to be something different in the show. Sometimes quite a bit, and sometimes just a little bit.
I’m always pushing for these changes, because I want the show to be something that comic book fans can watch and be surprised by. Like you said, nobody should have been surprised if they were reading my interviews. Hopefully now they’ll believe me! I’ve been very adamant. I’m the guy in the room pushing for more changes. I’m the guy going, “I don’t care, kill Rick now! That’ll be crazy!” I just want the show to be exciting and great. I don’t really care if it’s a carbon copy of the comic book; above all else, I don’t want it to be a carbon copy of the comic book. But I don’t want to scare anybody, either. I think that the first season is a perfect example of what we’re doing.
Sure, there’s definitely material that’s pulled straight from the comic books. You got to tackle that yourself in writing episode four, “Vatos,” when the walkers attack the survivors’ camp – that’s straight out of the early days of “The Walking Dead.” As much as you’re enjoying the deviations, are you able to appreciate it when the comic is translated so faithfully for the TV series?
I guess there’s some satisfaction to seeing the scenes that I wrote in the comic appearing in the show. That’s kind of neat. But for me as a writer, it’s boring as hell to write a scene that I’ve already written. If I do end up having time to work on the second season, I’ll be pushing to get the episodes that are vastly different from what happened in the comic books, just because it’ll be more fun for me to write something new. I definitely enjoyed writing the camp attack scene, and I wanted to make it as different as possible, but it ended up being kind of the same.
To a degree, yeah, but the way your team handled Amy’s death and subsequent resurrection was certainly a little different. That must be a nice perk of being a cast member on this show – even if you die, maybe you get to come back for a severely messed up scene in the next episode.
Yeah, that’s pretty neat. [Laughs] I’m sure there’s going to be some actor along the way that everybody likes so much that they end up coming up with some reason to chain a zombie and keep them with them forever. “Oh crap, we didn’t read that actor’s contract – we need him for seven more episodes!” [Laughs]
Going back to the new material, did you have a personal favorite in terms of deviations from the comic book?
The addition of Merle and Daryl Dixon, in general, I liked the addition of those two characters to the series. I love the fact that Merle is still out there and nobody knows where he really is or what he’s doing or if he’s alive or if he’s dead. And Daryl, he’s added such an interesting dynamic. He kind of came in and added more of the conflict that in the comic book we have between Rick and Shane. It’s a more extreme degree. It was cool seeing that conflict come in.
Shane’s surviving season one will contribute to the TV show’s deviations from the comic’s storylines
There are all kinds of little additions, like the scene where Amy came back to life. That was a really great and memorable piece of television that wasn’t in the comic book at all. Anytime that there’s something like that where I’m kicking myself going, “God dammit, I should have done it like that,” those are actually great moments – and luckily, there have been a few of those this season.You know, it’s really fun to go back and see all of these characters again. It’s cool seeing Glenn when he was young and not the character that he’s grown to become in the comic books now. It’s kind of cool watching the show come together, seeing the early stages of this, seeing Rick feeling his way out and trying to figure out what he’s going to do, as opposed to Rick in the comics now who’s just very headstrong and does whatever he thinks is right immediately. It’s cool seeing these characters acting a little bit differently [from the way they’re currently written in the comics].
One of the most fun things for me is the fact that Shane’s still alive and how much that changes how things will be moving forward. Anytime we go to Hershel’s farm or anything like that, Shane wasn’t there in the comic books, so just by design, throwing him into the mix is going to change these stories dramatically. There’s a lot of potential for a lot of cool things that people won’t expect because of that. That’s the stuff that I find the most exciting about the series – just exploring the changes and adding different layers that comic book fans won’t expect.
It’s one thing to kill a beloved character off in the comic books – not that it’s easy, but it’s largely a matter of Charlie no longer illustrating the character – but when you’re killing a character on the show, you’re essentially letting an actor go. Killing Amy, for example, means that Emma Bell is no longer on the show. For you, does that make it harder to kill some of these characters, or can you not let yourself worry about that kind of thing?
It’s definitely harder. A lot of these actors, like Emma Bell, she knew she would die before she was hired on. She was hired for a set number of episodes, so it wasn’t that she was fired; she knew she was going before she ever set foot on the set. But it’s still difficult, especially for the other actors. They’re all hanging out for weeks and weeks, and then all of the sudden, one of their friends has to go off and do another job because they died. That part of it all sucks.
But as writers, this is “The Walking Dead,” and we can’t really consider that too much. If it’s interesting to kill off a character, if it’s going to make the show better by keeping the danger heightened and keeping people on the edges of their seat, well, you kind of have to just bite the bullet and fire those guys. Luckily, all of the actors on this show are very talented and they’ll get new projects right away. But I try not to think about it. For me especially, having not worked in television, it’s just like, “Man, this sucks!” [Laughs] “I don’t want to do this!”
But it’s like you said, this is “The Walking Dead,”so an actor coming into the job should probably know it’s not the most permanent gig.
Yeah, and it’s funny, because there are three characters on the show right now that are still alive in the comics. You get to watch Steven Yeun [who plays Glenn] walking around on the set going, “Hey, it’s issue #85 and I’m still in this one! Are you in it? When did you die? Issue #26? Well, that sucks!”
I was reading an interview you gave with “Entertainment Weekly” earlier in the week and one of the few criticisms you had towards season one was that maybe you didn’t kill enough characters. Do you think the body count was a little bit low?
Well, like I said, if I have to come up with a criticism, that’s the criticism I would come up with. I think the season is fine and characters do die and everything, but I don’t know. It’s “The Walking Dead.” Characters die, and as much as I don’t want to fire actors and as hard as that is, I wish there was – yes, I wish more people had died. It’s like a bigger danger thing. I said that because I had just watched an episode of “Sons of Anarchy” before I gave that interview, and I noticed that more people died in that episode of “Sons of Anarchy” than our entire season – I think it was the episode before the last episode this season – and I’m saying to myself, “That’s not right!” There shouldn’t be a show on television where more people die than “Walking Dead.”
In terms of length, it must have been difficult to fit in everything you wanted to with only six episodes for the first season. Thankfully, season two is going to have 13 episodes. For all of the first season’s successes, it was short, but now you have some extra time on your side. Is that something you’re excited about for season two?
Yeah, it’s going to be kind of awesome. I’m very excited that we have 13 episodes instead of six. We’re going to be doing so much more and I’m really excited to get in there and figure out what it is we’re doing with these 13 episodes. Hopefully we’ll be able to do all kinds of crazy stuff that’ll blow people away. The six episodes, it wasn’t that hard to do that. We were always planning on there being more episodes, so we tried to fit in a bunch of cool stuff, but we were always keeping it in the backs of our heads that we would have more seasons if the show does okay. We’ll get to continue, unless it’s a complete disaster. It wasn’t really a matter of trying to cram as much as possible into the six episodes, but I think the second season will probably blow the first season out of the water. That’s cool, because I think the first season is already really good.
Looking ahead at season two, I have to ask you about the recent reports of firings in the writer’s room. Have you gotten any closer to figuring out what’s going on there? Are those reports completely off base? What’s the deal, as much as you’re willing and able to say?
I’ve spoken about this publicly a little bit. It’s a very unfortunate rumor in that it makes Frank Darabont kind of look bad, because you don’t go firing writers off of a successful show for seemingly no reason. That’s kind of what’s being reported, and that’s not really what happened. What happened was, AMC put this show together under the assumption that Frank would have a much smaller hand in the second season and possibly even leave the show, just because he’s a movie guy. You have a big time movie director directing a TV show, and the show wasn’t put together with the assumption that he would stick around.
Chic Eglee, who was the showrunner on “Dexter” for two years and who worked on “The Shield” for a few years, he’s a high-level show-running TV writer. He only came in as second-in-command on “Walking Dead” with the idea that he would be taking over on the second season. When Frank decided to stay, Chic decided to leave, just because it made more sense for him to do another show and allow this one to be Frank’s show. It’s part of his career and that’s what he wanted to do. So, Chic leaving somehow got reported as Chic being fired, which is not the case. It’s a weird thing, because I like Chic. Chic’s a great guy. I had a blast working with him and I hate to see him go. But if I get to watch a cool Chic Eglee show and I get to continue working with Frank Darabont on this series? It’s a win-win situation. [Editor’s Note: Eglee has since been reported as being involved in FX’s “Powers” adaptation.]
It’s unfortunate that it’s gotten reported this way, because it’s completely not true. It’s something that’s completely common in television: writers come and go. They get better gigs or different gigs and they go off to do other stuff. Writers rooms change from season to season, so that’s not unusual.
Well, what about you? How do you see your role evolving going into season two?
Oh, I’ve been fired. [Laughs] I’ll continue to be an executive producer, so I’ll continue to operate on the model of being a comic book writer, which is what I do. I want the comic book series going monthly, because that’s my main focus. With TV, it’s very tempting to work more on a TV show and have a more active hand, but it’s always going to be based upon how much time I have to devote to it. If I have the time, I would like to be more involved, and I will be. If I see that my comics aren’t coming up and artists are waiting on scripts and things are starting to become a bit of a disaster, I’ll back off [the show], just because I know it’s in good hands. The comics are my main focus. So, I may end up being more involved and I may end up being less involved. I don’t really know yet. It’s just a matter of what my time permits, so we’ll see!
