Everything Is Content - Danai Gurira - star of The Walking Dead: Everything In Conversation

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Today, Oenone is in conversation with actress, playwright and activist Danai Gurira. Danai plays the beloved character Michonne in one of our favourite shows - The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is back with a new spinoff series - The Ones Who Live - which sees Michonne reunite with her husband Rick after they were separated in a post-zombie-apocalyptic world. We find out what it’s like to portray a love story in such a high stakes world, why Danai thinks The Walking Dead captured audiences from its very first pilot, and her experiences as an executive producer, lead and writer on the series. All episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live are available exclusively on Sky and Now. You can binge all 11 series of The Walking Dead there as well! Follow Danai on Instagram @danaigurira—Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---This episode of Everything Is Content was produced by Faye Lawrence and Ollie Braddy for We Are GrapeExec Producer: James Norman-FyfeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think there was something very definitive about The Walking Dead and caught a lot of people by surprise. People I never expect to be fans are fans. I'm like, really? Really? You? Hello, I am Anoni. I have no Beth or Ruchira with me today. They haven't been eaten by zombies. They are just unavailable. As you know, every week on Everything Is Content, we deep dive into the discourse and unpack the biggest pop culture stories and today i'm so excited because we have a very special episode for you i'm going to be chatting to Danai Gurira Danai is an actress playwright and activist and she stars in one of my favorite shows

The Walking Dead i'm going to be talking to her about the new spin-off season, The Walking Dead, The Ones Who Live, which is available now on Sky and Now. The series sees the return of the beloved The Walking Dead characters, Rick Grimes and Michonne, in an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Please do tell us on Instagram who you'd love to have us speak to next. We're on Instagram at everything is content pod. We release new episodes every Friday,

so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss them. Right, I'm so excited because I got hooked on The Walking Dead only a few months ago. Hi Danai, how are you? I'm good, how are you I'm good how are you I'm very excited to speak to you I weirdly only got into The Walking Dead about two months ago and I started living in Paris was binged only up to season four and then when we got this email I was like I have to speak to her I'm so excited oh season four you got a ways to go I know but then do you know what's so sad is I was so excited about that for ages I haven't had a series that's got like loads of episodes to go I've watched all the big ones and then I I've watched the first episode of this like spin-off series and I had to read some context but I'm just have to blank that out so I can go back to season four yeah you got a ways to go

they don't get together till season six I know yeah because I had no idea about that so um I mean how is that for you have you ever worked on a project where you have so much license to go in so many different directions? And also the show has been able to carry on for so long. That's pretty unusual, I'd say. Yeah, yeah. It definitely was. You know, I joined season three. So it was kind of like stepping into this juggernaut.

And that there was no doubt that, you know, you're stepping into a massive thing with a massive, amazing fan base. And, you know, obviously based on a loved comic book. So, you know, it was, yeah, that's a blessing. I mean, and the beauty is we were all a very wonderful family unit, the crew, the cast, you know, producers, everybody was very, very close. We're still close. We're still all on like, you know, producers, everybody was very, very close. We're still close. We're still

all on like, you know, a text chain, you know, called the undead family text chain. So, you know, we still spend time together and are very close to each other. So it's been a very big blessing, actually, to be a part of it. What do you think it is about zombie and apocalyptic shows? We've spoken about this on the podcast before, that's so comforting. I find there's something really safe in kind of watching something about a dystopia. And we were wondering, is it because despite all the horrors, everything's stripped back to kind of just survival? And in some way that feels easier than normal life? I think there was something very definitive about The Walking Dead and caught a lot of people by surprise. People I never expect to be fans are fans. I'm like, really? Really, you?

And it's really, I think it's because there's something about, I didn't expect myself to be a fan, but because like I wasn't watching zombies, but there's something about how it was very character driven. And it was about who the key, the key question, like my dad's a chemistry professor. He was like the cool thing to him.

He was like, it's about the people. That's what's cool. And it's like, exactly. It's not about the dead. It's about how, who you become as the living. And I think everyone starts to question who would I be? And that's, that's what draws people in because it was like, I thought they set it up. So I thought, you know, Frank Darabont and he set it up so well in the pilot of the series. I thought, I always tell

people watch the pilot. If you don't like the pilot, forget it. Bye. But I feel like when people watch the pilot, they just, they're sucked in because it's so about human loss and human experience and all the things that all it's just all the things that we experience as human beings. And that we're scared of and that we're who would I be? How would I what family would I find? How would I figure it out? You know, we're all like battling with that in our minds as we watch it because it feels viscerally real. And, you know, I think what the job, the work that like Lenny James did and Andy did in that pilot, you really felt the human journey in such a powerful way that I think it really stopped you from being able to just say it's just about zombies. Just can't throw it on that pile.

I agree. And also, sorry, one last thing. I have to credit the Greg Nicotero team who do the zombie makeup because they, even that first pilot, like, you know, they call her the bicycle girl. The zombie was like half body and she's lying in the park next to a bicycle.

Like, how haunting is that but in her face you could see loss pain desperation um you know anguish and that it just it just it's no longer about like oh zombies are so dumb and weird it was a whole other thing they so i'm i'm accrediting things i had nothing to do with by the way obviously I came several years later but it's it's that is where I that's where I got hooked for those people who maybe don't know about this spinoff can you can you tell us where we've got to in the series where the stakes are and and where we're meeting the characters now in this new little branch so Rickick and michonne uh they are a couple they've been a couple since season six so it took a while for um their uh their love to blossom more for them to to face the fact that they were in love so we see uh what happens at the end of season or in the middle really of season eight or nine, season nine, Rick, he does something very

heroic to save everyone, but it seems to kill him, but he's actually not dead, but he's taken away in a helicopter. Jadis, who's her real, her real name is Anne, takes him away with this helicopter, with this, this army called the CRM that are actually functioning on a pretty, you know, non-apocalyptic world level. And so they're able to help him and save him. But they're also, their policy is that he can never actually leave that place. So he's sort of stuck in a place he can't escape from. And Michonne has always had a deep sense that he was not gone. So she, you see her struggling with that.

I left the series exactly a year after Andy did. But you see her when she leaves. My final episode is her finding a clue that he is indeed, her belief that he was not gone is actually validated. She finds his boots. She finds a phone with her image on it, with his name on it. And she knows that's from him. So now she has to go look. And her daughter, their daughter, Judith, tells her, you have to go. And she's also, she was pregnant when he was taken. So he has a son

he doesn't know about. We are now at the moment where we catch up with Rick. So it's been many years. And so the first episode is we catch up with Rick and, and we're okay. And then we see what happens. This series is about Rick and Michonne finding each other again and what, what that means and what that leads to. So I've watched that first episode and I was loving it. But as I said, I was inside crying because I was finding out so much information. But what's lovely, I think, in the series is you have these kind of dream sequences

with Rick and Michonne and they're in a non-apocalyptic world. There's no zombies. And it's quite sweet to see them kind of getting to know each other and flirt with each other and have a kind of, I guess, normal interaction? Was that quite fun to play with? Because I guess it's normally so high stakes and so scary.

It must've been fun to be a normal, non-undead occupied person. Yes, I thought that was, I was really excited when Gimple added that to the script. I was like, now we're talking. Cause I was talking to the boys. I was like, now we're talking. Because I was talking to the boys. I was like, guys, love story. Think love story, okay?

You got to get out of this apocalyptic, you know, always fighting and, you know, dealing with terror. You got to find the love story and all of that. So that was always my mantra, like, to Andy and Gimple. And then Gimple wrote that and he added it into the pilot. And I was like, no, we talk it like, cause it was just that breakaway. To me, it was very psychologically smart to do because of course that's how Rick escapes. It's how he stays alive is he escapes in here. He escapes in his dreams or in his imaginings. It's how his soul stays alive

in this horror. So it made so much sense to do that. And it was really fun to do because it was, yeah, it was different. I got to pick out like really nice clothes and like, you know, like, let me keep my braids in another week. So like, you know, the schism of a dream, she's got braids, not dreadlocks, you know? So it was really fun. And I had a feeling that the audience would dig it. I thought they'll like the reprieve, I feel. Because you're an executive producer on this show. How does that, and you're also the lead, how does that change your relationship with it?

Does it make it harder? Does it make it more enjoyable? Does it make things a bit tricky? No, no, no. Because we actually, you know, when AMC said, let's make it a limited, they literally were like, you know, we'll follow y'all's lead. So it was myself, Andy and Scott Gimple basically sat down in rooms and we devised the show. We all kind of contributed some writing here and there. Of course, Gimple did the most, of course, by far as a showrunner.

And then I wrote episode four. So it was a very different journey than before with the show. But it felt right. It felt like the organic place we needed to go. We devise how this goes. And so we were able to pour what we understood about the show and understood about these characters directly into something. And yeah, I think it was a huge, fantastic education. It was very intense to be an executive producer and to be a lead and to be

writing it. But it was, it was actually, it was, it was doable, you you know and it felt like that's where it needed to be it didn't it felt like this is the exact fit of this moment in the lead up to this there's obviously been so many series there's so many twists and turns as a viewer it's always so hard when inevitably quite a big character gets killed off and that is constantly happening and changing as an actor how different is that being in a cast that's ever evolving and how far ahead would you kind of know about the changes that were going to come because as a viewer it always just feels so cleverly done and that you're never quite expecting the next person that goes yeah i mean because we know we

know we know way in advance of course because while we're shooting, we might know a couple episodes in advance. There's some epic deaths that you know are coming. Like we knew you're only on season four. I'm like, am I going to spoil season six? Rick's first wife devastated me. Oh, yes. Yes, of course. No, I was going was i was gonna well yeah we knew that we knew that was coming because that's very much in the comic books and and uh there's some very clear

comic book deaths that you know are coming like sorry but like glenn if you don't know about that um very we we you know that's coming you're dreading that you you know he you know so that was that was something we knew was coming and it was it was a dreadful thought because you know he's couldn't imagine going to work without him really so different it's different different times you know some things are new some things are like oh that's happening didn't know that was happening or that's happening now didn't know that was happening. Or that's happening now? Didn't know that was happening. And then some things you know are coming because the comic book demands it. In this new series, there's so many layers

to kind of the different worlds that were pulled in and out. There's kind of like the dream sequences and there's where Rick is working. I mean, how much were you drawing on as a writer and a producer from real life events and the real world in order to construct these kind of layers that exist within the universe? I think with any story, you know, you're figuring out,

honestly, to me, it was really, there is a demand I felt from the characters' journeys. Like what's gonna work? What's gonna make sense? And what's not? And what's gonna be true to them? That's kind of where um i i pull from like what's true to them what feels really not true to them and that's where i would

that's that's from the point from which i would argue is like is is this true to these characters or is it like this doesn't feel right you know yeah and then if some and then whatever's true to them yeah you augment it with real world and experiences and but it really is about what what feels right for this for the journey and what doesn't can i ask you a really silly gory question what is the guts and stuff like does it smell because you know when people put it on to disguise themselves in the zombie i'm like and then i'm like does it actually smell? What is it? You, sorry, it's really stupid.

Very sugar-based. It's sugar-based. Okay, so it smells sweet. Yeah, yeah, it's sticky. God, it looks so real. I'm just thinking like, is that some pig or something? What is it? No, never, no.

You can lick it. Oh, lovely. And how much of, going back to those human stories, how much of this show has maybe translated into your reality? Has it ever kind of like helped you through with questions or made you kind of put things into perspective? Because as you say, it really does bring up those questions when you're watching it of how would I deal with such a

literally life and death situation and what would I prioritize? Yeah, well, I would say that Michonne has taught me a lot because, you know, there's sometimes I'm like, this chick is more of a woman than me. Let me like, what? So like, you know, I think that the interesting arc, I think the tremendous arc that I've been able to take with her, thanks to the writers, has sometimes been,

it's been very cool to learn from her and the sense of like she has a you know like if rick is more fire and she's more ice you know but they're both like the same sort of ferocity that's kind of a cool cool thing about her icy ferocity i kind of think i want to learn more from that i love michonne's character. I love you playing her. So as my final question, I guess, what should we expect from her in this new series? And is there anything major changes in her character that we should be looking out for? Well, you know, we'll, we'll see, but I think definitely, you know, she ends up in a lot of situations. She, or in a situational component that she didn't expect or didn't anticipate. And, you know, she has to

grapple with that. Well, a couple of them, really. And so we're seeing, like, who is she going to become in these moments? Because they're very moments she did not anticipate, and she has to pivot a lot. So, you know, I think that's kind of, you know, it's that idea of how much she has struggled with the faith that she believed that he was still out there. And then she almost doesn't. Well, we will see. And you'll see when you keep watching how she gets to the end of the rope of having her find him is, is what is that? And what is that? What is that going to do to her? And how is she going to respond to what she finds? So, and so, yeah, I think that's, you definitely see her new situations that she did not anticipate. And so she, you see how she has to pivot. Amazing. Oh, it's been such an honor to talk to you. Thank you so much. I was trying to like work out if i could binge like seven series in between this interview but i didn't at the time don't do

that amazing thank you so much thank you good to talk to you it's lovely to talk to you too all episodes of the walking dead the ones Live, are available exclusively on Sky and Now. And you can watch all 11 series of The Walking Dead there as well. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on Friday. Bye! Everything Is Content is a great original podcast and we are part of the ACAST Creator Network. This podcast was created, devised and presented by us, Beth McColl, Ruchira Sharma and Danone. The producer is Faye Lawrence

and the executive producer is James Norman Fyfe.