The Walking Dead franchise has been a fixture of the television and pop-culture landscape for almost 15 years now. It's responsible for launching the unstoppable zombie apocalypse genre on the small screen and it didn't do it alone, spawning its own spinoffs along the way to ensure that audiences all over the world were continuing to tune into the TWD Universe. From original offshoot Fear The Walking Dead to ongoing spinoffs Daryl Dixon and Dead City, there has been plenty of TWD to go around over the years.
The same can be said for the stars who appeared in them. We've seen plenty of actors come and go throughout the years as fan-favorites made an impression on viewers while others were killed off in shocking moments. However, one star of the franchise actually requested his own character's death, which made for one of the most infamous moments in the saga's history.
Now, seven years on, he reflects on that decision and the one regret he has about that time period.
Frank Dillane opens up about Nick's death in Fear The Walking Dead, reflects on his regret over exit interview
Fear The Walking Dead star Frank Dillane has spoken about his exit from the TWD spinoff. In a new interview with Empire Magazine ahead of his starring role in Harris Dickinson's Urchin, he looked back on his time on the show as Nick Clark, explaining why he decided that he wanted to leave.
"The way [the show] was — addiction, dead people, everyone being killed and guns — kind of exhausted me."
Dillane played Nick right from the series premiere (he's the first main character to appear on-screen in the pilot) through to the third episode of the fourth season. The character had his struggles, battling addition while trying to survive the early days of the zombie apocalypse. He had a close bond with his mother Madison (played by Kim Dickens) but the pair butted heads a lot, producing some of Fear's finest conflict. As he died in the same selection of episodes in which it was revealed that Madison had also "died" (the decision was later reversed and Madison returned in season 7), fans were quick to criticize the questionable creative choices that the show was starting to make.
But Nick's death was indeed Dillane's choice. And, as a tragic as it was for the character to die so suddenly (he is unexpectedly shot in the middle of a random altercation when trying to find Madison), Dillane was ready to move on from the show. However, there is one element of his exit that he regrets.
In an exit interview, he had said that he has never been particularly proud of his performances. In reflecting on that during his Empire interview, Dillane sees things very differently now - particularly the impact that Nick has had on others.
"I rebuke past Frank for saying that... I think Nick has had a real effect on people, maybe more than any of my characters. I still get people telling me how much he meant to them."
To call Nick a fan-favorite would be understating just how popular a character he was. In a way, he was one of the two main characters of Fear when it was in its original incarnation, as he and Madison often took center stage in the ensemble show. And it was those struggles that the character endured - and how he overcame them - that really endeared him to audiences.
Although Nick's sudden death was Dillane's choice, its placement in the same season that wrote Madison out, introduced The Walking Dead's Morgan as the new lead of the show, and jumped years into the future (needlessly rendering its inception as a prequel series redundant) really alienated a large portion of the show's fanbase. And the show was never really the same after that.
Nevertheless, there is no taking away the great show that Fear The Walking Dead was in its first three seasons and the beloved characters that clearly made a huge impact on audiences. That is the show's true legacy.