Hilarie Burton worried about making a ‘bad zombie’ in The Walking Dead

“The Walking Dead” gave viewers a deep dive into Negan’s story at the end of Sunday’s 10th season, an episode that gave Jeffrey Dean Morgan some time to really shine and allowed his real wife, actress Hilarie Burton, to play her other half on the screen.

While pieces of his past in previous episodes, “Here Negan” exposed everything in a series of flashbacks highlighting his relationship with Lucille de Burton, the namesake of his faithful bat.

Before the zombie apocalypse, the two weren’t exactly living a life of ecstasy: Negan was fired from his high school coaching job after a bar fight with a student’s father – and instead of being there for her when Lucille was diagnosed with cancer, he was too busy sleeping with his best friend to answer his calls. Yes, not great.

But while she battled cancer while hiding from the undead, he became a new man and a better husband – someone who would do anything to ensure she still received treatment. Unfortunately, she died while he was trying to get his last doses of chemotherapy and – after he set fire to their house with his body resuscitated inside – Negan pulled on his leather jacket, grabbed the barbed wire baseball bat and killed the men who delayed your feedback.

As an original story, it was very close to the source material, but having Morgan’s real-life wife by his side certainly brought even more excitement to the story. TooFab chatted with Burton after watching the episode, where she talked about her biggest fears when entering her husband’s show, praised Morgan’s work ethic and revealed what it was like to live at Rick Grimes’ house during filming.

Whose incredible idea was it for you to play your husband’s wife on screen and did you have any concerns about working together on something like this?

Jeff has been saying this for years and the fans said it on Twitter and on social media and I always acted in a very territorial way, like, ‘You are very honest, I am playing Lucille! No one else is going to make you cry, it’s my job! ‘

So when we got the call from Angela Kang and Scott Gimple at the end of last summer, oh man, you know when you ask for something and you have all that bravado – like, of course I can do that – and then you take it. Oh no, now I have to show up! The script was so good, it’s the best script I’ve ever done and I really wanted it to be great. Fortunately, my husband is a good stage partner. We liked to surprise ourselves, we liked to try new things and we both liked to appear very prepared and go to work, so discovering that we had something very similar on the set – we don’t like it very seriously, there is no point acting like a drama queen when the camera is not filming – it was a delight.

We really had a lot of fun and greeted each other at the end of the day and went home to prepare dinner.

How was it for you two to shoot some of the most serious or emotional scenes? We find out that he is cheating on Lucille, before she starts dying of cancer. It’s not exactly a lightweight material for a real-life couple to face.

We shot in October, when we would all be quarantined for a long time. There were so many emotional things in the news and in all of our lifestyles, everyone stood up. Being able to touch emotions was not necessarily difficult. For me, it was more difficult to contain why Lucille should be that, she is the rock. She is the strongest. And the first shot we made of the scene where Negan says ‘We never gave up’, baby, they couldn’t use my cover on that shot because I had a snot on my face, I was a mess. The way he looked at me, I thought, ‘I never want you to look at me like that in real life.’ It was heartbreaking. But you’re also very proud at the moment, because you’re like, ‘Look, my baby, he’s so good!’

Can you talk a little about your zombie makeover? How was that process for you and what was your husband’s reaction when he saw you all dressed up for the first time?

I loved. I loved it so much and I’m an idiot about it. I couldn’t wait. I wanted them to do camera tests, I wanted them to do something like 3 or 4 different times and they were like, ‘Calm down Hilarie, we do this every day.’ They gave me a little zombie lesson and Jeff didn’t see me. He wanted me to hide from him, so the reaction you see on camera is his real reaction.

It put a little pressure on me. I was so afraid that he would rip the bag off my head and fall down, if I was being a bad zombie. If I wasn’t being a good zombie, I didn’t want to spoil the emotion that he spent all day working on. But, you know, he had such a beautiful, layered performance. Witnessing that, as the person who loves him most, was incredible.

I saw your posts on Instagram, did you and your family really live on the set while filming this episode?

I feel like the production was like, what can we do to make sure they’re safe in the quarantine and don’t have to deal with transportation to and from the set? So the natural decision was, let’s put them in Alexandria, in one of the houses that they used on the set. We ended up living at Rick Grimes’ house. Paola [Lázaro, AKA Princess] lived next door, other actors lived in some of their own houses. There are only 2 or 3 houses inhabited in the whole neighborhood. It was a strange summer camp vibe, where at night, after the team went home, it would still be light outside – you would walk the dogs on the empty streets, garbage everywhere, the apocalypse surrounding us, 20 feet walls that surround the community. It was one of the most surreal experiences ever, but definitely one for books.

It’s like taking quarantine to the next level.

It was so goal. We are in a real life apocalypse, we are filming the beginning of an apocalypse in this episode and we are living in an apocalyptic scenario. It’s scary, man!

They didn’t realize – no one had ever lived in the houses before – that the shutters at the Rick Grimes’ house had deteriorated and shattered over the years. It is the hurricane season in October, so the wind that got stronger at night, it looked like someone was beating a drum against the house every night. how could anyone know that, nobody ever lived there, we were the guinea pigs.

In an interview with Forbes, you mentioned that your husband, as a person, has been vilified since he started playing Negan. How did you see people struggle with the line between actor and character … and do you think this episode can help to humanize you?

People who love Negan will love him even more and people who hate him will have a hard time hating him. I’ve said it several times, Jeffrey said it, a lot of people said it, if you had followed Negan from the beginning the way you followed Rick, all his decisions would make sense, they would be justified. But as he came halfway, swinging the baton, it became very difficult to like him.

We take our children to city fairs, car fairs and things like that, people come and have to say something and point a finger at him. I love all three versions of Negan that we see in this episode, because they are so different and I think it’s a testament to my husband’s talent. I am very proud of how he was able to pull it out.

There are some bad guys in real life who play really good bad guys on TV, but it takes a very talented actor to be a kitten in real life and play a real bastard – and he’s so good at it!

What would you love for fans to know about him, about how he approaches his work? Especially now that you’ve seen it more than ever, firsthand.

I’ve been able to see him getting ready for work for the past 12 years, but I’ve never been on set with him. That was an experience that I … know when something really amazing is happening right now and you’re like, ‘My God, I’m going to remember this forever’? That’s how it looked. He is a very generous stage partner and likes to make people feel good about themselves and I loved working with him. I’m not saying that just because it’s a good selling point, it’s really, really, really fun. Hopefully, we will do this again one day.

Which wig did you keep?

Baby, I kept that rainbow wig! My daughter is definitely Daddy’s little girl, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy – but when I came home with that rainbow wig, she thought I was amazing. So, I’m kidding my daughter, that’s what I appeal to with the rainbow wig.

Finally, how do you think you, as a family, would fare in a zombie apocalypse in real life?

I am a prepper. I am always prepared for the worst case scenario. I was a child who grew up watching Red Dawn. Oh man, we have to prepare for the invasion! So, I feel that we would be fine. I don’t want to boast about it, but Jeff and I could fight with strangers or whatever we need to do. We would be fine!

The 11th season of “The Waling Dead” will premiere in the summer of 2021.