The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is something of a homecoming for the ever-expanding franchise. It marks the long-awaited return of Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes, who left the franchise’s flagship show in season 9, and finally reunites Rick with Danai Gurira’s Michonne. Even as it does so, it expands greatly on the lore of the up-to-now relatively fringe faction of the Civic Republic Military (the CRM) and raises the stakes for everyone living in the post-apocalyptic world.

Thanks to the twists and turns of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live story, audiences are treated to introductions with several new and fascinating characters. These include Terry O’Quinn’s Major General Beale, Craig Tate’s Donald Okafor, and Lesley-Ann Brandt’s Pearl Thorne. Each character plays a crucial role in the journey of Rick Grimes and his reunion with Michonne, but also has their own compelling motives and goals that bring the world of the show to life.

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The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Review – Rick & Michonne’s Return Is A Romantic, Tense Thriller

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live brings Rick and Michonne back for a thrilling story that puts to the test just how strong of a bond they share.

Screen Rant interviewed Terry O’Quinn, Lesley-Ann Brandt, and Craig Tate about working with Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, joining the world of The Walking Dead, and more.

On Joining The Walking Dead Universe Alongside Andrew Lincoln

Screen Rant: This is a long-awaited return for Andrew Lincoln to The Walking Dead. You all spent time with him. Did any of you get a sense of what this meant to him through a conversation you had or a moment that you shared?

Lesley-Ann Brandt: I think he mentioned that on the panel yesterday when he said it was like 13 years of his life. There’s a lot that happens to you personally over the course of your life. Your kids grow. I understood that this is a job that meant so much to him because it took time away from his own personal family.

He created this very tight family at work, one that is committed to telling a great story and creating this wonderful show that fans have loved for so long. It was really pleasant to see how much he cared after 12 years of playing this character, how invested he still was, and how open he was as an actor to us newbies coming in with ideas and thoughts. I think he leads with just how much the show means to him and also the responsibility he has to give the fans what they want.

Terry, the CRM, which is at the heart of this, has shown up in The Walking Dead flagship show and one of the spinoffs, The Walking Dead: World Beyond. How much franchise research did you feel like you had to do to fully understand how you fit into this world?

Terry O’Quinn: Forgive me, none. I had nothing against the show. I didn’t follow it at the time, so I was not familiar with the show when I was approached by Scott and Andrew. I just talked a long time with Scott. We talked about General Beale and we talked about the history of the show, and he told me what he thought I needed to know. We could have talked for days about it, but if I get a particular scene, I read the scene, and I say, “This all makes perfect sense to me. I think I know exactly how to do this. Tell me if I’m wrong,” and they don’t tell me I’m wrong, then that’s how we do it.

But fortunately, I worked almost exclusively with Andrew, and he could inform me of things that he thought would help. Just adding a touch here, a tug there; that was very useful. But that’s kind of how I approach work. It’s kind of a need-to-know basis. What do I need to know just to make this happen the way you want to see it? That’s how we went about it.

Craig Tate Discusses Okafor’s Motives In The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

Craig, it is very much of The Walking Dead universe for everyone to have their own motives even within this larger group that they’re in. I know we can’t really talk spoilers, but can you talk about a little bit of who Okafor is and how he fits into the CRM?

Craig Tate: I can definitely go off of the motives. We all approach life and we all approach our days with some motive and intention. Okafor’s intentions as he moves forward through this world are rectification and reconciliation, I would say.

One of the habits that he has is botany. He has a greenhouse in his artificial garden where he grows a myriad of plants and herbs from all forms of soil he can collect. I think, in his mind, that his own approach to the world we find ourselves in is that from this desolate soil, there can be a rose, a lily, or millet. Some form of life can come from this.

Lesley-Ann Brandt & Terry O’Quinn Are No Strangers To Passionate Fanbases

Lesley-Ann, you spent a lot of time on the show Lucifer. How is it to go from one passionate fan base to the other? Are there certain things you’re getting ready for when this comes out?

Lesley-Ann Brandt: Yes. I’m already bracing, in a good way. I guess it started with Spartacus. Those fans were from Spartacus into Lucifer, and then I think I picked up some Gotham fans too, and they came on over to The Walking Dead. I’m just collecting fandoms at this point.

It’s a humbling reminder. You walk onto a set in New Jersey and it’s freezing cold when you’re shooting and you’re so uncomfortable. You get to the final product now, and now it’s like having a baby, which I think I’m the only person who’s had one here. You hope that everyone thinks your baby’s cute. I feel that way. It’s like you’re giving this gift out to the world, and it’s very exciting. It’s humbling for me to meet fans who have been part of this world long before I stepped in, and we stepped in as just supporting characters to Andy and Danai. But I’m always very grateful for anyone who watches what I do, and I am grateful for the warm embrace of the fans. It’s been humbling.

Terry, I want to extend that to you too, because you spent so much time on Lost, which had big reactions the whole way through. Did that color how you felt about joining this show?

Terry O’Quinn: It was a little bit intimidating, only because I didn’t know this crowd. I knew there were multitudes of them, but I wasn’t aware of exactly how it would be or how they would necessarily react to my participation. I’m still waiting to see. At this point, I’m just hoping the baby has two arms and two legs.

Lesley-Ann Brandt: And toes.

Terry O’Quinn: But I’m excited to be involved in something that already has an enormous crowd waiting to see it. That’s pretty cool, that that’s there for you.

Craig Tate Details His Hardest Day On Set

Craig, I am not sure how much of previous shows you’ve seen, but in watching this show, this felt almost uniquely cinematic and dramatic in the way that it told its story. Were there any moments that you experienced where you felt like this was new ground for the franchise?

Craig Tate: I don’t know if I can say I felt there was new ground for the series because watching from season one all the way until ten, which is where I left off… the show does a phenomenal job of taking you on the range of emotions; peaks and valleys. I can say that the first scene Andy and I had together was probably one of the hardest scenes I had done in my professional career, which was our fight scene inside the greenhouse.

There were the technicalities of the fight scene and the physical expense of that fight scene in combination with the emotional accuracy and emotional depth that we both had to call on. We had to really make sure that we got that right and that it wasn’t just an explosion for the sake of exploding, but that there were these very minute and intricate beats, moments, and fluctuations of the exchange itself. I would say that that was probably one of the most challenging scenes in my professional career.

About The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead… And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive — or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead?