Skip to main content

Q&A – Chad L. Coleman (Tyreese)

All articles from The Walking Dead blog »


TWD-S4-Chad-Coleman-Interview-325Chad L. Coleman, who plays Tyreese on AMC’s The Walking Dead, talks about landing a love interest on the show and his secret to taking out an entire walker herd with just a hammer.
Q: What did you know about Tyreese going into this season? 
A: That Tyreese was going to go through a lot. That’s what Scott [Gimple] was saying. He was gonna get tested, and he was going to kind of get turned inside out. No actor worth his weight doesn’t want to take on stuff like that. So that’s been real gratifying and rewarding to be able to do that.
Q: We come back this year and Tyreese has a girlfriend. How’d you swing that?
A: Man, Melissa Ponzio is so beautiful and talented, I wish she and I had the opportunity to work together more. But it was awesome working with her. That was my mantra: Tyreese should have a love interest. I just didn’t expect Karen to die in the second episode. I want a love interest and I want her to be around the entire season — but Karen’s death is very pivotal in the storyline.
Q: Tell me about the scene between Daryl, Rick and Tyreese after he finds out about Karen. What was that like to shoot?
A: That was really intense man, because we’re all game, and we all love doing our own stunts. There was a lot of adrenaline, and the director was fantastic. It was kind of claustrophobic because that space was pretty small, with dudes throwing each other around.
Q: Did you strike some fear into their hearts?

A: I think so! But it’s not really about that. Tyreese is kind of locked-up, emotionally. Robert Kirkman was there and he said it’s not really about the fighting, it’s about him provoking somebody to help him unlock so he could feel and to help him be able to grieve for her. The physicality of it, it was…woo! When I was done with that one, I had to get in the hot tub, for sure. A lot of us have theater backgrounds, and I’ve done stage combat and the stunt coordinator loves it because we’re all game to get in there and mix it up without stunt doubles.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Breaking up Your Story into Beats

  What scenes or story beats do you need to tell this story? You’ll add what you need to the basic framework you already have in your premises. Let’s work from the Jackie Chan Adventures premises we have so you can see how it’s done.   Basic structure of Jackie Chan Adventures: “Queen of the Shadowkhan”  Premise: •Jade, as one of the main characters, is the star of this episode. Her character fl aw is her need for peer acceptance/respect. This fl aw motivates a whole chain of problems for everyone around her. •We go to the end to see what, if anything, she learned. She learns not to succumb to peer pressure, and she realizes that indeed she did not succumb to Shendu’s pressure. (Theme: Respect earned from someone you admire is better than respect from all others!) •Jade’s initial goal is to be cool (have a tattoo) and gain respect. That snowballs as she begins to abuse the respect she gets from the ninjas. •Shendu is the villain who uses Jade in an attempt to destroy Ja...
Post a Comment
Read more

Three Acts

  “Leaves of three, let them be.” A helpful little phrase when it comes to avoiding poison oak in the woods, but when it comes to your  screenplay , three absolutely is company. This is the core of screenwriting.  Three Act Structure is your framework and the almighty epoxy of  the screenplay . These three parts, often literally taking place in different worlds – physically and/or figuratively – can work independently of each other, yet when connected, they build a solid whole. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Q&A – Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (Bob Stookey)

  Actor Lawrence Gilliard Jr., who plays Bob Stookey on AMC’s  The Walking Dead,  talks about his apocalypse-ready clarinet skills and how his character from  The Wire would react to zombies. Q: You’ve been in a lot of crime-centric shows. Were you excited to do something different on The Walking Dead ? A: Yeah absolutely. You get to play and have more fun and be more creative when you’re doing a show like this. Killing zombies — that’s what you do as a kid! Now I get to do it as a grownup. I definitely looked forward to the change and I’m having fun. Q: Your character is a medic. Do you have any skills that would be useful in the apocalypse? A: I play clarinet. I also play the drums, so I could keep the spirits lively and entertain everyone. That’s all I could do. Q: Bob is a pretty good shot. Did you do any weapons training for the role? A: None so far. When I was young, I learned to shoot, so I don’t really need any training for that. Q: You’ve...
Post a Comment
Read more