Alycia Debnam-Carey talks ‘Fear the Walking Dead,’ her character
AMC is expanding the Walking Dead universe with a prequel titled, Fear the Walking Dead. Star Alycia Debnam-Carey is excited about her role as Alicia and previewed her character during an interviw with Entertainment Weekly.
“Alicia, for me, becomes a realist in the world. Especially during the first season, we see quite a development of her from having someone who has got a plan and who has a future ahead of her. She’s one of the few characters we see who actually wants to go somewhere and has things really figured out. She’s surrounded by a broken home, lost her father, she’s got a wayward brother, and a mother trying to keep it all together…”
Set in Los Angeles during the outbreak, Fear the Walking Dead is months before Rick wakes up from his coma in the Walking Dead series, and times were tough for Alicia before the chaos.
“She’s still a teenager. That’s a really difficult time. You’re growing with who you are, but then suddenly to have nothing to grow with, no world to facilitate your growth — there’s nothing, and for her that’s just such a shock to the system. She loses a lot very quickly, and having to deal with that as a young person with so much ambition is really hard for her.”
Alycia talks about the role of Robert Kirkman in expanding the universe which started in the black-and-white pages of a comic book and how fans will react. She had to open up about the “gross factor” on the show.
“…I remember when I first got this I was like, ‘I don’t do well with gore and blood, it’s not really my thing.’ I’m not a person who’s obsessed with scary movies or horror films or anything like that, so when I was watching the original Walking Dead I was kind of surprised at how into it I was getting,” she explained to EW.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really unexpected from what I thought of my personality.’ There’s that scene in the well in season 2, where they bring that zombie out and he snaps apart — ughhh, that made me gag! But there’s a theatricality about it, which is really cool, and it’s still stylized which I really like.”
Check out the full interview here.
The show stars Cliff Curtis, Mercedes Mason, Ruben Blades, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Kim Dickens, Frank Dillane, Colman Domingo, Lorenzo James Henrie and Elizabeth Rodriguez.
Fear the Walking Dead hits the airwaves August 23 on AMC.