The Walking Dead’s Melissa McBride: ‘She’s just Carol to me. I root for her.’

Melissa McBride’s character has had an interesting transformation throughout the apocalypse on The Walking Dead. Some would say extreme. But to the actress, she’s just Carol.

Carol Peletier started at the refugee camp as a quiet abused wife and Sophia’s mother. She was a strong, kind and thoughtful woman under the dominance of her husband.

Once he was gone, instead of finding a new freedom and lIfe with her daughter, she lost Sophia, too. Then she had to transfer her love and specialness to those around her. She didn’t want others to experience the losses she had,

She became stronger. She became her own person. She learned how to protect herself and she wanted to teach those around her how to protect themselves. She started to block out her feelings in order to handle the necessary tasks,

MelIssa credits the writers with always having Carol’s experiences in mind in her words.

"“That’s what I like about the writing, everything is there. That’s indicative of good writing for an actor, you don’t have to scramble to know what the character is thinking or talking about, it’s just there, under the surface those little reminders.”"

More from Undead Walking

• Walking Dead alum Jayson Warner Smith promotes new film, Chipper, watch it now
• Walking Dead actor Chandler Riggs filming new movie in Tampa Bay
• Why is there no season 12 of The Walking Dead?
• Will Morgan Jones find Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live spinoff?
• Watch Tales of TWD actress Jillian Bell in Prime Video’s Candy Cane Lane

Melissa talked about filming “The Same Boat”. Much of what she says about Carol in that episode applies to Carol in general. Carol as a battered wife was pretending quite a bit. Always trying to keep peace. Then at the farm she had to pretend to have people help her find her daughter and protect her.

At the prison her pretending turned to starting to protect herself and teach the children to protect themselves. Even killing Karen and David thinking she was protecting the community. She wasn’t always pretending, but there was always a blurry line between what was her and what was act.

"I was fascinated with the predicament they were in and Carol’s reaction. The hyperventilating — the question of where does [her] true reaction begin and where does the ruse start? It was a challenge to figure out how to play it..where does the ruse end and where does the truth, panic, anxiety, and guilt begin?"

People adore Carol. Especially badass Carol. Many people got angry with Morgan for bringing up any feelings of sadness and guilt in Carol for her killing. I would argue that it’s not Morgan’s fault, but that’s another story. Melissa is proud of her character.

"I’m grateful that people find her inspiring or they relate to her from season one and see how much she’s changed and become stronger. I look at her, I don’t feel badass when I’m playing her. I don’t feel like she feels like a badass. These are all just heat of the moment decisions. She’s not a puffer, she’s not puffing out. She’s just like, ‘Oh god what I am gonna do? I got an idea, I’ll do this.’ She’s just Carol to me, I just love it. I root for her, I adore her because of that.”"

Next: All named character deaths of season 6

We all root for Carol. We’re grateful that Morgan saved her and she’s not in the Negan line up. Hopefully, she is resting and gaining some balance and perspective with the Don Quijote looking dressed up men in not so shiny armor from The Kingdom. Maybe she can do a Terminus act and save some of our people from Negan and The Saviors.

Just Carol is just fine with us!

(Quotes Via Yahoo)