‘The Walking Dead’ season 6 spoilers: Lennie James on connecting Morgan’s many dots
There are several reasons why “The Walking Dead” is not going to be the same exact show you remember when it premieres on AMC come Sunday, October 11. The presence of Morgan is just one that will probably stand out more than others.
Through the past several years, the appearances of Lennie James have been isolated. He was integral in the first season, and was then involved in one of the most important episodes of the entire series in “Clear.” We started to see his journey continue in season 5, and despite being by and large on his own, appeared to be much more together than he once was. He has this new philosophy on life that advocates peace and harmony over warfare and despair.
Can a man like this coexist with Rick in Alexandria? We will start to see soon. For James, one of the real joys of playing part has been putting together all of the little threads of this character. It’s almost like looking at a car from a helicopter that keeps going into tunnels; you have to guess what happens in there in between the times that it surfaces and can be seen from the sky.
The actor spoke further on this journey in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview:
“One of the brilliant things of playing him is joining the dots. So, linking the guy you saw who was three weeks ahead of Rick in the pilot, and then the guy who had lost his mind in ‘Clear’ in season 3, and linking those guys and making sure that not just that you play who he is in the situation, but who he used to be in carrying that along with him.
“So the thing I had to do in the finale of season 5 was make sure that despite the fact that he’s quite obviously gone through a transformation again, that he’s still the guy he was in ‘Clear’ even though he’s trying not to be, and is also still the guy he was in the first episode, but obviously has moved on. So, that’s the beauty of kind of playing that character and linking them together. And he has gone through a transformation. It’s the transformation that the viewers will find out some or none about in season 6.”
We love Morgan, and the more the show uses him, the better off we’ll all be. With that, let’s not hope for another lengthy disappearance from James in the future.
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