'The Walking Dead: Dead City' Star Mahina Napoleon Talks 'Interesting' New AMC Series (Exclusive)
The Walking Dead ended its 11-season run last year, and Fear the Walking Dead is coming to an end after eight seasons. But the franchise is not dying anytime soon as The Walking Dead: Dead City will premiere on AMC this Sunday, June 18 at 9 p.m. ET. PopCulture.com spoke exclusively to Dead City star Mahina Napoleon, who gave fans a taste of what they can expect from the new series.
"This show is very interesting," Napoleon exclusively told PopCulture. "There's new things, new characters, and it's really fun." Dead City follows The Walking Dead characters Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) traveling to New York. Due to the zombie apocalypse, New York City is filled with the dead and denizens, making the area much different from what Maggie and Negan dealt with in the past.
Napoleon plays Ginny in Dead City and said her character is a "strong, resilient young girl who's born in the apocalyptic world and hasn't spoken a word since a traumatic event. She also trusts Negan and has Negan as a father figure." Ginny being close to Negan allowed Napoleon to work closely with Morgan and Cohan.
"Those two, Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, are the most amazing people ever," Napoleon said. "They helped me in scenes. They helped me act better, bring emotion out, and they're just the sweetest people ever, especially Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He's nothing like his character at all. He's the sweetest guy ever."
Napoleon also revealed some great advice from Cohan and Morgan, saying "They actually told me to find something in your real life and bring that, to portray that into Ginny to help me portray the emotion better." With Napoleon being new to The Walking Dead universe, she got to get up close and personal with the zombies and was amazed by how regular people are turned into walking creatures.
"Since I've watched the show, I've always wondered how they put that together," she explained. "Seeing the prosthetics and the makeup and the blood, it was so weird, but super, super, super cool. It was funny too because once we were done shooting the scene, you just see zombies eating and talking on the phone and talking to each other. It was really weird, but it was really cool."
It's likely Dead City will be a very popular series since Maggie and Negan are fan favorites. And for Napoleon, she's ready to work on a potential second season of the series. "It's crazy," Napoleon said. "It's so much fun, and I'm really excited to see if there's going to be a season two and work on that."