August 14, 2023 • 13 mins
Sarah Wayne Callies is perhaps best known for her leading roles in hit tv series including "The Walking Dead." Currently, Sarah is the creator, writer, director, and voice of the science fiction, post-apocalyptic scripted podcast "Aftershock." We talk to Sarah about season 2 of the show and her emotional final scene in The Walking Dead.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:31):
Appetite for her episode number sixteen.Today we have with us Sarah Wayne Callie.
So you may know her from herleading roles in Colony, prison Break
and of course as Lorie Grimes andthe mega hit The Walking Dead, and
now she's expanding her passion for storytellingas the creator, writer, director,
(00:51):
and voice of the science fiction,post apocalyptic scripted podcast Aftershock, entering its
second season on iHeartRadio and wherever youget your podcasts. Sarah joins us.
Now, Hello, Brando, howyou doing, Sarah? How are you?
I'm really well, Yeah, thanksfor having me on. I feel
like it's appropriate that even though we'reon Zoom, we're not seeing each other
(01:15):
because of your new podcast. Howit's just real theater of the mind kind
of stuff. But when you say, correct me if I'm wrong, because
when you say podcasts now you thinkof two people talking interviews. But I
feel like Aftershock goes back to theold school radio days, theater of the
mind and sound effects and just ifyou can, please, if people who
don't know tell us about Aftershock,yeah, I mean, you're you're right.
(01:38):
It's a throwback to that sort ofWar of the World's kind of audio
drama. You know, they're callingthem scripted podcasts or fiction podcasts, but
yeah, it's you know, it'stelevision with your eyes closed. And you
know, we had my producing partnersand I had an idea for a real,
(02:00):
real, big story, and werealize that probably the best way to
tell it would be to let people'simaginations do the special effects rather than trying
to pull together some four hundred milliondollar budget. And you know, still
in ten years the special effects aregoing to be dated and look a little
(02:21):
silly, maybe even five years,that we would let people's imaginations pull those
images that were tailored to them.So the story that we're telling right the
earthquake everyone's always been talking about.It hits, it levels La thirteen miles
off the coast in international waters.A new island rises up out of the
ocean. So the question of thatfirst season is who goes there and why.
(02:44):
It's a story of westward expansion toldnow centered on women, centered on
people of color, and we followCassie, who I play, who is
going to that island, desperate tosave a young woman, to fill the
dying wish of somebody that she loves. And she gets to the island with
the help of a kind of goodSamaritan that she meets along the way.
(03:07):
And then people keep coming to thatisland, and the question is what do
they want? And are they runningfrom something? Are they running to something?
And then people start dying and thebodies start piling up, and the
question is, you know, howsafe are people on a new island without
any kind of you know, lawand order thirteen miles off the coast.
There's there's no government out there,and what's killing everyone? So we tell
(03:30):
the story kind of wrapped up ina mystery. By the end of the
first season, everybody's got a lotof blood on their hands. The season
two becomes kind of an exploration ofatonement and apology and forgiveness. How do
you know when you've done the unthinkable? How do you make that right?
And can you make it right?You're obviously I don't need to tell you
(03:53):
this. You're good at what youdo. Because as you're talking right now,
the amount of images going through myhead and just eat yours to listen
to season two and to find outabout the story. So it's interesting because
I guess one of the questions goinginto it, which you kind of answered
that it was meant to be ascripted podcast because, like you said,
(04:15):
effects could be outdated in just afew years, So this is just kind
of almost everlasting. As an actor, is there is it more challenging to
do something like because you obviously youmanage shows and movies that you've been in,
but now you're leaving it up tothe audience. So what is it
like for you? And because I'massuming, and tell me if I'm wrong
(04:36):
with this, also, are youtalking to Are you by yourself when you're
reading the script or you with otheractors in the same room? Are you
feeding off each other? Because it'sgot to be quite a different challenge.
Yeah, you know, the productionpart of it is a challenge. And
you know, we've got all thesegreat actors, right you know, Dave
(04:56):
Harberd, Jeffredan, Morgan, Tati, Gabriel Parish, all the really really
wonderful folks, and that means they'rebusy. So as much as I really
wanted everybody in the same room atthe same time, that just wasn't going
to happen. So what we woulddo is we would get people. We'd
get people in various studios, right, ihearts ihearts our studio, and so
(05:20):
they've got studios in New York,New York, Atlanta, in LA and
we would get as many people aswe could in those studios, and then
we'd ship a mic to Dave Harbor, who was you know, off in
the middle of nowhere in England fora little bit on the countryside, and
we'd set him up and he'd doyou know, he'd record in his closet
for sound, and we would doas much as we could. There were
(05:43):
inevitably some scenes where you'd have tohave the actors on different days, and
that's really hard from a performance perspective, but everybody was kind of game and
I would read opposite, you know, So if Dave wasn't available on one
day and he had a scene withJeff, I would do my best Dave
impression for Jeff, and do mybest Jeff impression for Dave. Inevitably laugh
(06:09):
at me and be like, justread the words. I'll fill in the
rest. But yeah, you know, it took It's part of the reason
the second season took so long isbecause we had all these actors everywhere.
But you know, I'm excited aboutit, and we took some big swings
when it comes to the story andwe're dealing with a few things. I'm
(06:30):
not sure everyone's gonna love. I'mI'm hoping that the audience takes the journey
with me. But it's also possiblethat people are going to be like,
yeah, I disagree with this,And you know, we took some risks
creatively, and that's it's exciting tobe able to do that. And I
actually think that's another thing that podcastingallows us to do is take sure big
(06:51):
creative risks, see how they panout. Oh absolutely, and I'm excited
to hear it. And I thinkas a podcaster coming from radio, it's
a yeah, there's a lot ofcreative things that you can do. I
know, I only have you herefor another minute or so, and I
would be remissed because I'm obviously,like a million other people, a massive
(07:11):
fan of The Walking Dead. Irecently just did a binge rewatch the entire
series from beginning to end because andthis is this ties everything in together,
because I just became a dad.Congratulation thank you my son Harrison or horrorson
I guess because I watch he wasfalling asleep on me. I was like,
(07:33):
the zombies are munching on people.So what I said to my wife,
you know, I had a littlebit of difficult labor, I believe
me. Disappoint to this. Isaid, at least you're not giving birth
on the basement where zombies are tryingto eat you in in a prison.
Could you possibly, and again,I know we don't have a lot of
(07:53):
time, tell me about filming thatscene. Just what a powerful scene that
was. And I don't know spoileralert, you know it's you don't really
well whatever you could tell us,Well, you know the beautiful thing about
that scene. That was my lastday ONCET and I almost the entire cast
came and I didn't know because Iwas at a certain point. I was
(08:16):
stuck to the floor. There wasso much blood that between the prosthetic belly
and the blood effects, I couldn'tget up. And so our director,
God bless him, Guy Farland,just got down on the ground with me
and would lay there with me betweenshots. And Guy and I go all
the way back. His first episodedirecting anything was on the first season of
prison Break. So we've been friendsour whole careers, and you know,
we would sort of lie there onthe ground and Chandler and I were,
(08:39):
you know, trying to stay asconnected as we could, and there was
a lot of real emotion there.You know, I'd watched this young man
start to grow up, and Itruly love the kid, and I you
know, he'd been almost attached tome physically for almost every episode that he'd
been in, and all of asudden, I'm leaving the show. And
there were a lot of big emotionsthat day, and he did such extraordinary
(09:01):
work. And then at the endof the day they unstick me and I'm
kind of waddling out to my trailerso I can shower off all this blood,
and there is almost the entire past. They've driven an hour and a
half out from Atlanta. Wow,to sit there and just be there,
and I couldn't say anything. Ijust stood there with tears streaming down my
face and hugged a bunch of peopleand gotten bloody. And then we drove
(09:22):
down the road to the roadhouse andhad a few shots of apple pine moonshine
And I can't tell you what happenedafter that, really remember, but it
was amazing. It was It wasone of the best days I've ever had
in set. Amazing thank you Sarahfor sharing that, and I hope we
get to do this again. Absolutely, and congratulations to Harrison. And I
(09:43):
hope your wife is I hope she'sall right. Labor is a bloody business.
Oh yeah, no, matter whereyou do at her house, we're
all good now. But yeah,at the time, I just kept it's
just interesting I am interviewing you now, and I specifically used you as an
example of how to get through it. At least you're not in the bottom
of a prison, you know.Well, I hope she took that.
I hope she took that better thanI would have. I probably would have
(10:03):
ripped my husband's head off up likethat fair enough that she laughed, she
did laugh. Well, she's agood person. She's a good person.
Good to see Brando. Likewise,thank you, Sarah. Oh what a
sweetheart. And I was not expectingthis interview. I mean the fact that
I just did a rewatch binge rewatchrecently of The Walking Dead, so her
(10:26):
character while for those of us whowatched in real time, The Walking Dead
has been dead for years, Ifelt like I just relived that death scene
over again, sticking through my mind. And I really did make that comment
to my wife, who kind ofyou know, laughed it off, being
like ha ha, you and thezombies ha hahu. But it's very cool
(10:46):
to get to speak with her todayand hopefully next time it'll be for a
little bit longer. So thanks forfinding Appetite for Horror. Follow along with
us in between the broadcasts because I'mnot sure when the next ones do come
out. This is like my secondpassion projects. So the mothership podcast Appetite
four Distortion, my guns n' rosesthemed podcast. That's where you can find
(11:11):
Appetite for Horror, the video versionson the YouTube page, so like for
instance, today you can listen tothis interview with Sarah wherever you get your
podcasts, obviously, but I putup some pictures for your watching and viewing
pleasure on the episode version on YouTubeon the Appetite for Distortion YouTube page,
(11:31):
so you can check that out there. And you can follow Appetite four the
number four Horror on Facebook, onTwitter x Twitter or whatever or Instagram,
and that's where the conversations continue inbetween the broadcasts. If you have a
perhaps because I love doing radio withanybody. If there's a movie review but
(11:52):
you don't have a podcast, yourselfthat you want to get out there and
talk about let's talk, Let's let'sdo it. If there is a guest
that you want me to reach outto to interview, send me. I
do the same thing. On theappetite of distortion of my listeners get heavily
involved or my producers. I'm justthe guy with the microphone. So let's
create some stuff as we can goalong. I will say this though,
(12:13):
next episode, I know my guestAnthony C. Ferranti, who is the
director of all these Shark Nado films, and can you believe it's the tenth
anniversary of Sharknado. Until then,keep beating that appetite for horror.
Appetite for her episode number sixteen.Today we have with us Sarah Wayne Callie.
So you may know her from herleading roles in Colony, prison Break
and of course as Lorie Grimes andthe mega hit The Walking Dead, and
now she's expanding her passion for storytellingas the creator, writer, director,
(00:51):
and voice of the science fiction,post apocalyptic scripted podcast Aftershock, entering its
second season on iHeartRadio and wherever youget your podcasts. Sarah joins us.
Now, Hello, Brando, howyou doing, Sarah? How are you?
I'm really well, Yeah, thanksfor having me on. I feel
like it's appropriate that even though we'reon Zoom, we're not seeing each other
(01:15):
because of your new podcast. Howit's just real theater of the mind kind
of stuff. But when you say, correct me if I'm wrong, because
when you say podcasts now you thinkof two people talking interviews. But I
feel like Aftershock goes back to theold school radio days, theater of the
mind and sound effects and just ifyou can, please, if people who
don't know tell us about Aftershock,yeah, I mean, you're you're right.
(01:38):
It's a throwback to that sort ofWar of the World's kind of audio
drama. You know, they're callingthem scripted podcasts or fiction podcasts, but
yeah, it's you know, it'stelevision with your eyes closed. And you
know, we had my producing partnersand I had an idea for a real,
(02:00):
real, big story, and werealize that probably the best way to
tell it would be to let people'simaginations do the special effects rather than trying
to pull together some four hundred milliondollar budget. And you know, still
in ten years the special effects aregoing to be dated and look a little
(02:21):
silly, maybe even five years,that we would let people's imaginations pull those
images that were tailored to them.So the story that we're telling right the
earthquake everyone's always been talking about.It hits, it levels La thirteen miles
off the coast in international waters.A new island rises up out of the
ocean. So the question of thatfirst season is who goes there and why.
(02:44):
It's a story of westward expansion toldnow centered on women, centered on
people of color, and we followCassie, who I play, who is
going to that island, desperate tosave a young woman, to fill the
dying wish of somebody that she loves. And she gets to the island with
the help of a kind of goodSamaritan that she meets along the way.
(03:07):
And then people keep coming to thatisland, and the question is what do
they want? And are they runningfrom something? Are they running to something?
And then people start dying and thebodies start piling up, and the
question is, you know, howsafe are people on a new island without
any kind of you know, lawand order thirteen miles off the coast.
There's there's no government out there,and what's killing everyone? So we tell
(03:30):
the story kind of wrapped up ina mystery. By the end of the
first season, everybody's got a lotof blood on their hands. The season
two becomes kind of an exploration ofatonement and apology and forgiveness. How do
you know when you've done the unthinkable? How do you make that right?
And can you make it right?You're obviously I don't need to tell you
(03:53):
this. You're good at what youdo. Because as you're talking right now,
the amount of images going through myhead and just eat yours to listen
to season two and to find outabout the story. So it's interesting because
I guess one of the questions goinginto it, which you kind of answered
that it was meant to be ascripted podcast because, like you said,
(04:15):
effects could be outdated in just afew years, So this is just kind
of almost everlasting. As an actor, is there is it more challenging to
do something like because you obviously youmanage shows and movies that you've been in,
but now you're leaving it up tothe audience. So what is it
like for you? And because I'massuming, and tell me if I'm wrong
(04:36):
with this, also, are youtalking to Are you by yourself when you're
reading the script or you with otheractors in the same room? Are you
feeding off each other? Because it'sgot to be quite a different challenge.
Yeah, you know, the productionpart of it is a challenge. And
you know, we've got all thesegreat actors, right you know, Dave
(04:56):
Harberd, Jeffredan, Morgan, Tati, Gabriel Parish, all the really really
wonderful folks, and that means they'rebusy. So as much as I really
wanted everybody in the same room atthe same time, that just wasn't going
to happen. So what we woulddo is we would get people. We'd
get people in various studios, right, ihearts ihearts our studio, and so
(05:20):
they've got studios in New York,New York, Atlanta, in LA and
we would get as many people aswe could in those studios, and then
we'd ship a mic to Dave Harbor, who was you know, off in
the middle of nowhere in England fora little bit on the countryside, and
we'd set him up and he'd doyou know, he'd record in his closet
for sound, and we would doas much as we could. There were
(05:43):
inevitably some scenes where you'd have tohave the actors on different days, and
that's really hard from a performance perspective, but everybody was kind of game and
I would read opposite, you know, So if Dave wasn't available on one
day and he had a scene withJeff, I would do my best Dave
impression for Jeff, and do mybest Jeff impression for Dave. Inevitably laugh
(06:09):
at me and be like, justread the words. I'll fill in the
rest. But yeah, you know, it took It's part of the reason
the second season took so long isbecause we had all these actors everywhere.
But you know, I'm excited aboutit, and we took some big swings
when it comes to the story andwe're dealing with a few things. I'm
(06:30):
not sure everyone's gonna love. I'mI'm hoping that the audience takes the journey
with me. But it's also possiblethat people are going to be like,
yeah, I disagree with this,And you know, we took some risks
creatively, and that's it's exciting tobe able to do that. And I
actually think that's another thing that podcastingallows us to do is take sure big
(06:51):
creative risks, see how they panout. Oh absolutely, and I'm excited
to hear it. And I thinkas a podcaster coming from radio, it's
a yeah, there's a lot ofcreative things that you can do. I
know, I only have you herefor another minute or so, and I
would be remissed because I'm obviously,like a million other people, a massive
(07:11):
fan of The Walking Dead. Irecently just did a binge rewatch the entire
series from beginning to end because andthis is this ties everything in together,
because I just became a dad.Congratulation thank you my son Harrison or horrorson
I guess because I watch he wasfalling asleep on me. I was like,
(07:33):
the zombies are munching on people.So what I said to my wife,
you know, I had a littlebit of difficult labor, I believe
me. Disappoint to this. Isaid, at least you're not giving birth
on the basement where zombies are tryingto eat you in in a prison.
Could you possibly, and again,I know we don't have a lot of
(07:53):
time, tell me about filming thatscene. Just what a powerful scene that
was. And I don't know spoileralert, you know it's you don't really
well whatever you could tell us,Well, you know the beautiful thing about
that scene. That was my lastday ONCET and I almost the entire cast
came and I didn't know because Iwas at a certain point. I was
(08:16):
stuck to the floor. There wasso much blood that between the prosthetic belly
and the blood effects, I couldn'tget up. And so our director,
God bless him, Guy Farland,just got down on the ground with me
and would lay there with me betweenshots. And Guy and I go all
the way back. His first episodedirecting anything was on the first season of
prison Break. So we've been friendsour whole careers, and you know,
we would sort of lie there onthe ground and Chandler and I were,
(08:39):
you know, trying to stay asconnected as we could, and there was
a lot of real emotion there.You know, I'd watched this young man
start to grow up, and Itruly love the kid, and I you
know, he'd been almost attached tome physically for almost every episode that he'd
been in, and all of asudden, I'm leaving the show. And
there were a lot of big emotionsthat day, and he did such extraordinary
(09:01):
work. And then at the endof the day they unstick me and I'm
kind of waddling out to my trailerso I can shower off all this blood,
and there is almost the entire past. They've driven an hour and a
half out from Atlanta. Wow,to sit there and just be there,
and I couldn't say anything. Ijust stood there with tears streaming down my
face and hugged a bunch of peopleand gotten bloody. And then we drove
(09:22):
down the road to the roadhouse andhad a few shots of apple pine moonshine
And I can't tell you what happenedafter that, really remember, but it
was amazing. It was It wasone of the best days I've ever had
in set. Amazing thank you Sarahfor sharing that, and I hope we
get to do this again. Absolutely, and congratulations to Harrison. And I
(09:43):
hope your wife is I hope she'sall right. Labor is a bloody business.
Oh yeah, no, matter whereyou do at her house, we're
all good now. But yeah,at the time, I just kept it's
just interesting I am interviewing you now, and I specifically used you as an
example of how to get through it. At least you're not in the bottom
of a prison, you know.Well, I hope she took that.
I hope she took that better thanI would have. I probably would have
(10:03):
ripped my husband's head off up likethat fair enough that she laughed, she
did laugh. Well, she's agood person. She's a good person.
Good to see Brando. Likewise,thank you, Sarah. Oh what a
sweetheart. And I was not expectingthis interview. I mean the fact that
I just did a rewatch binge rewatchrecently of The Walking Dead, so her
(10:26):
character while for those of us whowatched in real time, The Walking Dead
has been dead for years, Ifelt like I just relived that death scene
over again, sticking through my mind. And I really did make that comment
to my wife, who kind ofyou know, laughed it off, being
like ha ha, you and thezombies ha hahu. But it's very cool
(10:46):
to get to speak with her todayand hopefully next time it'll be for a
little bit longer. So thanks forfinding Appetite for Horror. Follow along with
us in between the broadcasts because I'mnot sure when the next ones do come
out. This is like my secondpassion projects. So the mothership podcast Appetite
four Distortion, my guns n' rosesthemed podcast. That's where you can find
(11:11):
Appetite for Horror, the video versionson the YouTube page, so like for
instance, today you can listen tothis interview with Sarah wherever you get your
podcasts, obviously, but I putup some pictures for your watching and viewing
pleasure on the episode version on YouTubeon the Appetite for Distortion YouTube page,
(11:31):
so you can check that out there. And you can follow Appetite four the
number four Horror on Facebook, onTwitter x Twitter or whatever or Instagram,
and that's where the conversations continue inbetween the broadcasts. If you have a
perhaps because I love doing radio withanybody. If there's a movie review but
(11:52):
you don't have a podcast, yourselfthat you want to get out there and
talk about let's talk, Let's let'sdo it. If there is a guest
that you want me to reach outto to interview, send me. I
do the same thing. On theappetite of distortion of my listeners get heavily
involved or my producers. I'm justthe guy with the microphone. So let's
create some stuff as we can goalong. I will say this though,
(12:13):
next episode, I know my guestAnthony C. Ferranti, who is the
director of all these Shark Nado films, and can you believe it's the tenth
anniversary of Sharknado. Until then,keep beating that appetite for horror.
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