The Unique Walking Dead Episode Greg Nicotero Would Love To Make

Over 10 seasons, there's not a lot about the zombie apocalypse that The Walking Dead hasn't covered. But Greg Nicotero, executive producer, special effects guru, and director of more than 30 episodes of the AMC series, says there's still something the long-running genre hit hasn't tried that he'd like to. 

In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes celebrating the show's 10th anniversary, Nicotero said that despite already telling the survival tale through the various perspectives of one of TV's biggest ensembles, there's still one lens he wants to explore, and it's that of a walker.

"I was thinking about this the other night, that it would be kind of interesting to have an episode where we actually follow a walker all the way from the beginning," Nicotero said. "[L]ike the opening scene would be a person is killed, and they're on the ground dead, and then they come back as a walker, and we actually follow them through the world as they come into contact with different people." 

Nicotero then explained that seeing The Walking Dead universe through the eyes and experiences of a walker isn't entirely new to the show, but that his specific envisioning would take the series in a place it hasn't gone before. 

"I just think it would be a unique perspective, to see an episode not necessarily shot from the point of view of the zombie, but kind of being with a walker as it's killed and then reanimated and then going into a herd," he continued. "We kind of had a little bit of that in the beginning of season 2 when we started showing the beginning of the herd that overruns Hershel's farm, but I just think we could do something really fun and special with that." 

Only time will tell whether the AMC mega-hit will try its hand at Nicotero's vision, but fans can be assured that the series' walkers will be ready to step into a leading role if they do. Long-time fans of the post-apocalyptic drama already know that the show's background actors — the hordes of zombies that constantly surround The Walking Dead's living leads — are well trained. For years, actors who auditioned to play zombies on the series were put through "Zombie School," a day-long intensive that tests their ability to pull off being undead. 

"I usually do 20 or 30 people per class, and I spend an entire day auditioning people, putting them through some exercises in terms of how fast they walk, what their character is, what their personality is, explain to them that in many instances, their performance can make or break a scene," Nicotero told The Frame. "If you have somebody that's in a scene that does not look like they're authentically performing, it could take the audience out of the scene." 

While the director and special effects virtuoso typically put actors through this boot camp each season, more recently, Zombie School has been closed thanks to local performers' masterful work, particularly those from the Georgia-based haunted house attraction Netherworld. "I don't think we've done Zombie School in two years, because at this point, we have our troupe of zombie performers and actors, and I think the people that we love, we bring them back over and over again," he told Rotten Tomatoes. "A lot of those people that had been working at that attraction ended up being some of our best zombie performers." 

It appears that if Nicotero's walker-guided Walking Dead episode ever occurs in the show's final season, he'll know exactly who to call.