The Walking Dead: Masters of hiding actress pregnancy

The Walking Dead have done a masterful job of hiding pregnancies from their actresses, which isn’t as easy as it sounds on hit television programs.

Recently, it was announced that Alanna Masterson, who plays Tara Chambler on AMC’s The Walking Dead, gave birth to a happy, healthy baby girl.  Of course, it’s a fantastic thing for her and her family, but working on filming a television show where the character isn’t pregnant can make things really difficult for the actress and the crew.

However, through the use of television magic, they were able to film Alanna and not clue in viewers on her pregnancy.

One of the easiest methods they used to hide the baby bump involved putting objects in front of her abdomen or having her lean forward to hide the belly.   We can see an example of her doing both these things in a scene from last week’s episode of The Walking Dead.

Another popular strategy is to have the actress cross her arms or shoot them as little as possible from the chest down.  However, some of AMC’s best handiwork came from when Sonequa Martin-Green was pregnant.

For Sonequa, The Walking Dead had to do something a little different.   Since her character Sasha Williams had a big role in the events of season 5, they used several layers of clothing as well as her holding objects in front of her to distract from the perspective of the shot.

This and the above concepts were employed as well on the hit show How I Met Your Mother when Alyson Hannigan used every item on the show to hide her pregnancy, including beach balls, basketball racks, and as seen in the photo, a water cooler.

For fans in the know, it was fun to watch and see how CBS would hide Hannigan’s pregnancy and got to be something that fans could look forward to each week when How I Met Your Mother aired.

Those watching The Walking Dead can do the same thing with Alanna Masterson this season on The Walking Dead.  While they aren’t likely to be as obvious and absurd as How I Met Your Mother, it should be something fun and interesting to watch for.

You can see Alanna Masterson, Sonequa Martin Green, and the rest of the cast of The Walking Dead when the hit zombie survival show airs each Sunday on AMC.