LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — Universal Studios Hollywood is readying to open its first full time ‘The Walking Dead’ attraction to the public, and as part of the preparations, it’s training groups of actors to become the titular walking dead.
On Wednesday (June 8), the theme park opened up its doors to journalists to show them how they are holding boot camps for actors who will be involved in the attraction.
Overseeing the training were the park’s creative director John Murdy and Greg Nicotero, the executive producer and director of the television show on which the ride is based.
“Greg every year takes all the extras that are going to be on the show and he has to train them how to be walkers,” explained Murdy. “So when Greg and I were collaborating on this attraction, we talked about doing that with our cast. Our cast will go through two weeks of training and blocking for the attraction and in addition to it and as a starting point we wanted Greg to come out from Atlanta because they’re in the middle of shooting ‘The Walking Dead’ right now into training our actors how to be a walker.”
The park has held seasonal Halloween events based on the television show, but with this ride, it will be at the park all year round and enhanced with props and prosthetics from the series.
“It’s not a passive experience,” said Murdy. “You’re in that world and it’s like you’re one of the survivors so as you navigate your way through this attraction it’s very much like Rick and his gang trying to navigate themselves through the world of the walker apocalypse and there’s threats everywhere you have to watch out for.”
“I think it’s going to be really scary but the thing is about scaring people that I’ve learned over the years and I’ve been doing this all my life is it’s kind of the same as riding a rollercoaster. There’s an adrenaline rush when people get scared. When you watch people coming out of a scary experience whether it’s a horror movie or a Walking Dead attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, usually in addition to screaming they’re usually laughing and there’s a big smile across their face because that’s what it is. It’s a thrill but there’s a psychological aspect to it as well. It’s facing your fears, you know,” he added.
During the boot camp, Nicotero instructed the young actors methods of realistically playing a ‘walker’, including slowing down, dropping shoulders and trying to develop their own style of walk.
Also at the event was ‘Joe’, one of the television show’s extras, who Nicotero used as a bench mark for effectively being a ‘walker’.
“It’s a very unique form of acting, you know,” said Murdy. “It’s very physical so in some ways it’s like being an athlete because whatever they’re going to do they’re going to do every ten seconds, literally thousands and thousands if not millions of times so a lot of it has to do with being in control of their body and being able to be this close to people without actually touching them and that’s what they do extremely well, being able to exit a scene they way they enter it, always being in character.”
But if you though it might be fun to play one of the ‘walkers’, Murdy does warn that it isn’t the easiest of jobs.
“When you’re filming the TV series, at the most you’re going to film for two minutes and then call ‘Cut’ and everybody goes back to their air conditioned trailers to take a break. That’s not how it is in the permanent attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood. Our walkers have to stay in character for a lot longer so in a lot of ways it’s a lot tougher than doing a TV series,” he said.
“The Walking Dead” ride will have its official opening on July 4.
