After having to keep his return to “The Walking Dead” a secret while shooting scenes for Season 5, Lennie James is having a blast with Season 6.
On last season’s “Talking Dead,” the actor, who plays Morgan, told host Chris Hardwick that the production had to go to great lengths to keep his presence in Atlanta under wraps. Now that everyone knows he is in Season 6, Lennie is having fun without the burden of staying hidden.
“I can’t tell you how much fun. I get to go out and eat with other cast members,” he told Access Hollywood on the red carpet at the Entertainment Weekly Comic-Con party on July 11. “They’re allowed to know who I am. I’m allowed to be in town. It’s incredible. It’s like being let out of the cave.”
WATCH: Lennie James Talks Themes For ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 6
It certainly seems like Lennie’s character Morgan will be a big part of Season 6 judging by how prominent he was in the Comic-Con “TWD” poster and trailer.
Since the trailer and poster dropped earlier this month, there has been speculation that Morgan is going to step up as another leader at Alexandria, but Lennie said not everything is how it seems.
WATCH: Danai Gurira: What’s Ahead For Michonne On ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 6?
“I can tell you that a lot of the trailer isn’t necessarily literal,” he said. “So it’s about the themes and the theme that Morgan brings to Alexandria and the theme of, you know, the ethos that Morgan has, which is that all of life is precious and he’s no longer gonna kill people any more. But when he arrives, the man he thinks he’s gonna join up with is putting a bullet in somebody’s head. So the themes that those two men are carrying are going to run through this season.”
Michonne, the one character outside of the Grimes boys who has some history with Morgan (from Season 3’s “Clear” episode), will have her guard up, it seems.
“When we think about the last time these two characters met… Michonne was weirded out. Michonne was like, ‘Who is this guy? He’s crazier than me and this is weird,'” Danai told Access at the same event. “So she’s kind of like… ‘He’s back in our lives and he does this weird thing to Rick.’ So she’s kind of like on this weird path with him… because she doesn’t know who he is. What she remembers is not something safe or something comfortable.”
Michonne may have her guard up, but Danai is thrilled to have Lennie back on the show.
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“I love Lennie,” she said. “He’s an amazing guy. He really, really is. It’s so beautiful to have him around. … And I’ve always yearned to have more of him. I got to be the one who got to do ‘Clear.’ … It was so great. I didn’t get to do any [big] scenes with him, but it was so great just to be around his energy. He’s so brilliant. I watched him do that scene in ‘Clear,’ with him and Andy [Lincoln], and I was like, ‘Wow!’ It was such astounding acting and work and storytelling, so to have him back is really exciting.”
“The Walking Dead” returns to AMC for its sixth season on October 11.
— Jolie Lash
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