‘The Walking Dead’ season 4 showrunner Scott Gimple talks about keeping the show #1, doing a good job
There have been tensions and fallout surrounding The Walking Dead season 4 when showrunner Glen Mazzara was announced to be departing hit AMC drama.
The replacement, Scott Gimple has remained relatively quiet about his rise from writer to executive producer. Now, in advance of the big Comic-Con 2013 panel next week, Gimple has finally spoken up to preview his personal new spin on The Walking Dead season 4.
Scott Gimple, right, on the set of “The Walking Dead” with co-star Steven Yeun (Glenn)
“I have a healthy amount of fear in my life, making my wife lasagna and any of those things. I was freaked out the first script I did here [during season two]. So when they offered me the showrunner job, I certainly had a little bit of healthy fear,” Gimple told THR.
“But the No. 1 thing is I love this show, I love this cast, I love this crew. Working with everybody here was amazing. So whatever trepidation I had, the answer could only be yes. My concerns are, with anything, wanting to do a good job, and I felt I could. I felt I could make my wife that lasagna. I think unless you’re a little bit nervous about it, in my mind, it shows you care and you’re determined to do something great.”
Gimple accepts the pressure to keep the show’s success and discussed his preparation.
“The first way I prepared was many years ago, being a reader of the comics. I actually come from comics, and I’m big on comics. I was reading Walking Dead from the beginning. Then just being on the show, I was really lucky to work on episodes like “Pretty Much Dead Already” and “Clear.” I worked a lot on episodes that I didn’t write. I produced when I was out in Georgia, and that’s an incredible education in and of itself. On other shows, like Flash Forward — that I worked on with David Goyer — and from the start, it was just throwing the whole producing angle at me very quickly, and I started doing a great deal.”
In some ways Gimple has endured and can modify his approach, learning from his predecessors.
“It’s my third year now, and I’ve been able to benefit from the lessons we’ve learned, and I’m just trying to apply them. Whether it comes to writing, edits, talking with the crew, working on big sequences, I’ve been lucky to see people do it, both the triumphs and pitfalls. The biggest thing that I know is that it’s all about collaboration, and that goes on with all the people in Georgia and all the people in L.A. I’m constantly on the phone with the rest of my executive producers, picking their brains, asking for their help when I need it, and all of us pulling together to get things done.”
Check out the full interview here
