TIME OF HER LIFE
Fan favourite Lauren Cohan returns to The Walking Dead to resolve some unfinished business, writes Duncan Lay
MANY characters have died in The Walking Dead, some have reappeared as zombies – but very few have been able to come back to life.
Which is why Lauren Cohan’s return as Maggie in the final season of The Walking Dead will be something special.
Cohan, who had been an integral part of the gang since season two, left in season nine during the time jump after the exit of Rick (Andrew Lincoln).
With Lincoln gone, the series needed a new leader and Maggie was the obvious choice. However, a salary dispute saw Cohan leave to star in the short-lived cop show Whiskey Cavalier instead.
With that gone and TWD needing to finish its super- sized season 11 (24 episodes instead of the usual 16) on a high note, Cohan is back.
It’s great news for fans, who were devastated that a favourite was allowed to disappear without a proper goodbye. But how does Cohan feel about a return?
“I feel bittersweet about it,” she says.
“Growing up loving things like Fawlty Towers which had a specific end point, I’m kind of excited to know that all of the fans who have watched for such a long time are now all part of our family, that all now get to key in for this final season together.
“And, at the same time, it’s not really the end because The Walking Dead is such a huge universe with so many exciting spin- off possibilities.”
She admits she liked slipping back into her best-known character.
“Yeah, it’s great. I’ve been gone for the best part of two seasons so the delay to shooting, while disappointing, has given us a chance to come up with some great new content for the end of this season and then we come back again for 24 more episodes for season 11,” she explains.
“Maggie is back. It’s not just a visit but I can’t really say anything more than that.”
Although the set was missing her old friends Lincoln and
Danai Gurira (Michonne), she said it was easy to slip back into TWD mode.
“It was like I had never been away. I spent a whole month shadowing one of our directors and catching up with everyone so when it actually came to play Maggie again, it wasn’t weird or overwhelming at all,” she says
And of course it meant back to battling the undead – usually without stunt doubles.
“We get to do a lot but sometimes someone will step in to say you’re not allowed to do something because it’s too dangerous. I like to do as much as I can,” she reveals.
“I have [been injured fighting the undead] but not from doing anything particularly amazing in an action sense.
“I always seem to get injured from the most benign stunts.
One time I remember just having to run along holding a big gun while looking really badass. It was easy but then I went and twisted my ankle on a little divot on the ground. It’s always been something silly like that.”
Maggie has seen her sister Beth die in her arms, watched her father Hershel beheaded by a madman and sobbed as her husband and father of her unborn child Glen had his head beaten in by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). That has been a heavy load for any actor.
“It can be hard, yeah. It’s been a long journey for Maggie and all of these characters,” she said.
“They have all had to deal with some awful situations and some huge challenges, Maggie in particular since she became a mother. That’s not always easy to portray without feeling it myself.”
But is she anything like Maggie?
“She’s a lot tougher than me but I do really connect to her in terms of her growth as a daughter to being a mother and the way she seeks the strength in others to learn and better herself,” she says.
“She has learnt that surviving in this world is about being strong and optimistic. I love that and I love her feistiness.”
This week TWD fans are hopeful they will see the return of Maggie – as well as the battle they have been waiting for since April – when the final episode of season 10 hits our screens. When last we saw them, our heroes were holed up in an abandoned hospital, while Beta and a massive army of walkers were descending upon them to extract a bloody revenge for the death of Alpha.
The delay in the finale was obvious because the battle required a huge amount of post-production work and COVID-19 proved to be a stronger pandemic than even a zombie apocalypse.
Expect several fan favourites not to make it through the bloody battle. After all, this is The Walking Dead and deaths are part of its attraction.
THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 10 FINALE AIRS 8PM, MONDAY, FOX SHOWCASE STREAMING ON BINGE AND FOXTEL ON DEMAND