The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is one of the best shows in the franchise’s catalog and it brings a much-needed glimpse inside the world of the Civil Republic Military (CRM). We spoke with the cast about their roles in the series and how they grounded their characters in the zombie apocalypse.

During a roundtable before the season premiere, I spoke with Terry O’Quinn (Lost), Craig Tate (I’m a Virgo), and Lesley-Ann Brandt (Lucifer) about diving into a franchise like The Walking Dead and finding their characters’ humanity in an impossible situation. For Brandt, that’s what makes shows like TWD so powerful for both the audience and the actors alike.

“I think any show that has any kind of supernatural or otherworldly element to it, the gift of those shows or films is that you get to tell human stories that aren’t as confronting as if you were just to put it in a normal setting,” Brandt said. “You get to touch on themes and ideas and I think even speaking to what Matthew Jeffers said yesterday, having a character who has dwarfism, there’s not a big deal made about it. He’s just a person who exists in the world as it should be. But I do think the ultimate goal in these kinds of shows is just telling the truth. While the situation might be something we’re not familiar with, I’m not typically stabbing people in the face who are dead and coming towards you trying to eat your face or something. That friendship is universal, love is universal, betrayal and loyalty. Those are all universal themes. Survival is a universal theme. And this big idea of you’re 12 years down the line and the walkers have become something in the background now, and the focus is on the humans. And who is the biggest threat? It’s us, it’s ourselves.”

Terry O’Quinn knows what it feels like to be on a show surrounded by the mystery of other humans from his tenure on Lost. In speaking of his character, Major General Beale, he said “I think as far as access, we’re talking about accessibility of the character and I think that the farther out situation is, it might be a little bit more of a challenge. You have to use a little bit more imagination just to get to that place. But so much of that just depends upon the written word on what they put on the page for you to say what comes out of your mouth and the situation they set up. I think that, in my case, for my character, it’s pretty tunnel vision. So I had a lot fewer elements I think maybe to consider than some of these guys did, but good writing is much easier to do than bad.”

Craig Tate also talked about connecting with the characters. “I’ll piggyback definitely off of Terry and Lesley on that one. I mean, here we are as humans in this universe, in this Walking Dead universe, created by a very human individual and Scott Gimple, right? So human stories made by humans. Definitely, you’re always gonna have those things you relate to that keep you grounded, whether it is connection, whether it is search for affection, whether it is running from qualms of the past or running towards this idea of how the future may be for you. This future self or future circumstance. So, I don’t think it’s too difficult. Like Terry just said, if the writing connects right then, you know, us as a vessel, all we’re doing is adding one more texture to the painting, which is the script itself. So if the writing’s good, as it is in this case, you get the magic, you get the portrait. So I don’t think it was difficult at all. No. Seamless.”