Fear the Walking Dead debuts on Sunday, August 23 on AMC. We had a chance to talk to the cast and creators about what this new series brings to the world of the zombie apocalypse.
Fear the Walking Dead is set in East Los Angeles during the time period that Rick Grimes was in his coma. Essentially it’s a tale of how the world started to fall apart: the disbelief, the denial, and the disintegration of order. On the other hand, The Walking Dead is a survivors’ tale of a world that has already fallen apart where what walkers are capable of, and man’s inhumanity to man, is a known quantity.
On a certain level, Fear the Walking Dead is scarier than The Walking Dead. To start off, there is no comic that the series is directly based upon to clue viewers in regarding what is about to happen. It gives the writers a lot of freedom to explore the universe in any way they want without disappointing the fanbase. Executive producer Gale Anne Hurd addressed this freedom by telling us, “the good news is obviously we have the co-creators of the series: Dave Erickson, who had worked with Robert Kirkman before, Robert Kirkman who created this universe in which this show exists… at the same time we don’t have to worry about people saying, when is Neegan going to show up? So that’s two sides of the same coin.”
As was the case with The Walking Dead cast, the Fear the Walking Dead roster is comprised of some TV veterans, as well as relative newcomers. Obviously the cast of Fear the Walking Dead knew how big the show they were getting into had the possibility of becoming. Some were already fans of the show, and others were die-hard comic fans even before the show aired on AMC.
Veteran actor and two-time Emmy nominee Rubén Blades, who plays the Salvadoran family patriarch Daniel Salazar, has been passionately hooked on the series from the start. “I have all the comics, I collect comic books actually,” he told us. “Probably one of the few people in the group I think that does. I’ve been collecting comics since I was a kid so … yes I am a fan.”
One of the things that struck us immediately is that Fear the Walking Dead is about the 21st century American family and their typical problems. Society isn’t at the point yet where catastrophic losses have occurred. Whereas in The Walking Dead, Daryl and Rick consider themselves brothers not by biology, but by blood spilt, trust, and loyalty. Family in their world is no longer solely defined by blood.
Family in East Los Angeles is about as diverse as Modern Family, only with a lot less humor. There are cross-cultural, blended families such as the Manawa/Clark families, who are trying to make things work with the complications of drug addiction and resentment. There are two-generation immigrant families pursuing the American Dream such as the Salazar family, originally from El Salvador. There is also the Ortiz/Manawa family, where a single parent has to play mediator between an angry child and ex-husband.
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.