I hope you’re enjoying this series of blog entries on English actors in popular American TV series.  Let’s look at another show that has literally “walked” off the pages of a tremendously popular graphic novel series.

The Walking Dead.  The lead character, played by London-born actor Andrew Lincoln: Rick Grimes, a small-town Georgia sheriff, and reluctant leader of a group trying to survive in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.

Having been seriously injured in a car chase and subsequent shootout, Rick wakes up to find himself alone in an abandoned and ruined hospital.  Weak and in pain from his bullet wound, Rick explores the rubble-strewn corridors and comes upon barred steel doors with the frantic and frightening message painted on them: DON’T OPEN, DEAD INSIDE.  He recoils as something horrible pushes its weight against the doors, and dozens of dead hands reach through the gap, sensing his presence.  Rick makes his way outside and discovers the true scale of what had gone on as he lay unconscious in the hospital.

Though still very weak he makes his way back to his neighborhood, instinctively seeking his wife and son.  He finds them gone but is assisted by a man and his son who have barricaded themselves in their home.  He recovers from his wound and makes his way to Atlanta, where he hopes his family has gone.  When he gets there he finds the city has been overrun by “walkers” and very nearly meets his end.  He also meets up with survivors of a group foraging in the city but living outside it, a group he will eventually find himself leading.  Though the walkers are a constant and inexorable threat, the greatest danger is the human survivors, whose motives and agendas remain unpredictable.

Born Andrew Clutterbuck, Andrew Lincoln has spent the bulk of his career as a television actor in Britain, with his lone foray onto the big screen being in the hit movie Love Actually in 2003.  One of his quirks as an actor is that he never watches any completed production of anything he’s performed in.