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Andrew Lincoln Shed Tears Over Emotional Walking Dead Speech

By Adam Carlson

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The most recent episode of The Walking Dead was the episode that Andrew Lincoln always wanted to make.  Not because of intense action or huge plot twists, but because he got to deliver an impassioned speech to the rest of the survivors around a fire.

On the surface, a speech doesn’t sound like much.  However, this speech in particular was one that was iconic in the comic book series, yet added an interesting dynamic to the show by actually referencing “the walking dead” as not the zombies, but the humans.

In case you missed the speech from season 5 episode 10, here is a transcript from it:

"“When I was a kid, I asked my grandpa once if he ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn’t answer. He said that was grown up stuff, so…. So I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him, but he got real quiet. He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Every day he woke up he told himself, ‘rest in peace—now get up and go to war.’ And then after a few years of pretending he was dead, he made it out alive. And that’s the trick of it, I think. We do what we need to do, and then we get to live. But no matter what we find in DC I know we’ll be okay, because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead.”"

It was revealed in a recent article on the Entertainment Weekly website that the speech hit Andrew Lincoln kind of hard.  In fact, he equated it with a speech that he had to give previously.  That kind of powerful speech brought Lincoln to tears when he first read it in the script.

Here’s what Andrew Lincoln told Entertainment Weekly in the article:

"“When I read it, it reminded me of something that happened in my life when I spoke to someone in a fight,” says Lincoln. “It almost had the same speech, so it resonated on a really, really profoundly, deep, familial level. I remember when I read it, I just cried. When I read the script I couldn’t…because I always to tend to read my words out loud and I just couldn’t. I got something caught in my throat when I read this speech. It’s just a very bold episode and I hope we got it right.”"

I think that Andrew Lincoln got the speech very right.  It was this speech that actually sold the hopelessness of the survivors much better than the lack of food, water, and supplies.  Instead, to hear Rick Grimes talk about what they need to to do survive in a way that made things sound futile was just what viewers of The Walking Dead needed.  This speech was just what the episode required to establish that the group hit rock bottom without showing survivors passing out or dying due to malnutrition or dehydration.

What do you guys think?  Was Andrew Lincoln effective in giving his speech as Rick Grimes to the rest of the survivors?  Or did the scene just not work for you guys?  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Next: Walking Dead 50 most shocking moments and deaths

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