Q&A: Melissa McBride talks ‘Walking Dead’ while tiptoeing around spoilers

TORONTO – “The Walking Dead” star Melissa McBride is understandably wary of spoilers.

AMC’s zombie saga returns with its sixth season Sunday to address lingering questions like: Who are the Wolves? Are duelling Alexandria residents ready to assimilate? How long will McBride’s character Carol keep up her double-agent ruse?

The actress chooses her words carefully while chatting with The Canadian Press about shifting dynamics within the group, new threats to the community, and Carol’s evolution from battered wife to battle-hardened warrior:

The Canadian Press: What’s happening with the residents of Alexandria when we meet them again?

McBride: We’ll see the fallout right where we left off, in fact. The premiere has some interesting different simultaneous timelines but it does start up right after Rick shoots Reg so we’ll see what happens and if everybody is willing to work together. Or not.

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CP: I take it not, otherwise it wouldn’t be the show that it is. Is Deanna still in charge?

McBride: You would assume that her giving Rick permission to kill Pete right then and there (that she’s not). There’s a lot that happened that evening that was very eye-opening for the Alexandrians.

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CP: What about the Wolves? What is their role this season?

McBride: We’re not done with the Wolves. We’ll find out more about them this season as well.

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CP: You’re very good at not revealing spoilers.

McBride: That’s five years of being paranoid to say anything…. I don’t do a whole lot of interviews and this is probably why — because I just don’t trust my mouth!

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CP: I imagine interest in you has gone up quite a bit given Carol’s recent storyline.

McBride: Yeah, I think the fans are having fun with her duality, you know. I’m certainly having fun with it, too…. Everybody’s finding their place in Alexandria, trying to figure it out. Her role (was to) just immediately go undercover, kind of sinking into her invisibleness in order to gain some intel.

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CP: Does that continue or does she reveal her true self now that the game has changed?

McBride: We’ll see as this new season goes on how bright those flowers are on her sweater. But we still get little glimpses … there’re different interactions, different characters like Sam, you know. Sam got up close and personal with the other side.

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CP: You say the other side but I think there was always a toughness to Carol, even if it might not have been so apparent.

McBride: As the circumstances have gotten more dire and more grey and more serious (she’s changed). The threats are greater. I think she’s going deeper into her arsenal of the experiences that lend themselves to her survival in this world. From that world into this world….

Her experience pre-apocalypse with Ed … sleeping with one eye open and tip-toeing around him trying not to set (his temper) off and being very aware of her surroundings and what she says to who, you know. I think that prepared her for this journey.

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CP: Did you know this would be her arc when you started the series?

McBride: Absolutely not. I thought in fact that she would not be on the show more than a couple of episodes that first season. It wasn’t said one way or another … but to me there was a lot of standing on the sidelines so I felt like she might be walker food. I didn’t know.

And then later I felt really this is a different character, a different Carol than the comic book, they were taking that liberty and changing stories.

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CP: How does Morgan change the dynamic?

McBride: He has a very different point of view, so his presence in Alexandria is going to challenge the way that we see things need to be done, the way that we have assembled our group to do our runs and do our things and back each other up. We kind of have a system and Alexandria, of course, on the whole, is very different than being out on the road.

We’re in a community now, there’s people that are not aware of the threats and that’s where we left off. How are they going to accept the reality? We’re forcing them to face the reality of what this world is now. These are going to be some of the challenges coming up.

— This interview has been edited and condensed.

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