Angela Kang

Major changes are in store on The Walking Dead as it heads into its ninth season on AMC in the U.S. and FOX around the world. The survivors of the zombie apocalypse are living in a world that is running increasingly short on resources. The core group that the show has been following since day one is about to lose its leader, Rick Grimes, as the star Andrew Lincoln prepares to return home to the U.K. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the series—based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novels—has a new showrunner in Angela Kang, a longtime fan of the comics who has been with The Walking Dead since season two.

WS: What can you tell us about the overall theme of the new season?
KANG: Season nine starts in a world that looks kind of different from when we left it. We start with a time jump—we’re about a year and a half after the end of the previous season. That’s a bigger jump than we’ve done before between seasons. And we get to tell some new kinds of stories as a result, which is really fun and exciting. We see that our characters are actively dealing with the world around them changing as resources dwindle. They’ve scavenged all the gas that’s usable nearby, so what do you do next? They’ve turned to [riding] horses and they’re making biofuels. They’re conserving their bullets more and creating and relying on different hand weapons, which means closer combat with the zombies, and that can be a little bit scarier. So those kinds of things are happening. They’re dealing with infrastructure around them falling and crumbling and nature taking over. That provides some new challenges for them to deal with. And on a human level, you have people who have been at war for so long, fighting for daily survival, coming up against these human groups and these extended conflicts. They start in a time of relative peace, but now you have characters who are really thinking about their philosophies going forward and you see some conflict and divergence on that front. These are people who love each other very deeply but fundamentally disagree about some things. What does that do to that family they’ve built as they’re all trying to rebuild something that feels like civilization? That’s one of the big themes of this season: who are we as a civilization? How do you rebuild civilization? Does civilization even matter? Can you rebuild something that we once knew or do you have to start over in a new way entirely? Those are some of the stories we’ll be telling over the course of the season. We had a lot of war in the all-out-war story [in season eight], so we start with [the ninth season] on a different axis.

WS: And there’s a new villain for this season.
KANG: The new villain! One of the most anticipated storylines from the comic books—certainly one that I’ve been anticipating—is the story of The Whisperers. Comic-book fans will know exactly what that means. For fans who don’t want the story spoiled, I won’t say too much about it—other than, if you’re really curious, you can read it in the comic book! It’s a storyline that makes our people question whether everything they knew about zombies is actually true, or if there’s something new that they’re learning. Samantha Morton is an amazing actor that we’re so excited to have join us this season [as Alpha]. And we cast Ryan Hurst to play Beta. He’s incredible and has a ton of fans of his own from different kinds of material. We’re excited to show our first female villain; she has a unique role in this world.

WS: Andrew Lincoln has confirmed that he’s exiting this season. I know we can’t discuss his final episodes, but could you talk about how you’ve prepared for his departure, given the huge role he’s played since season one?
KANG: We’ve known for a while that Andy needs to go home to his family. He’s the loveliest person to work with. He was so welcoming to me from the beginning of my time on the show, and the work we did together this season has been so gratifying and satisfying. He’s such a good person who cares so deeply about The Walking Dead. We love him and we’re a family behind the scenes. All we can focus on is trying to tell the very best story we can, one that does service to this character, that gives him amazing material to work on. It’s been really fun writing scenes with him and a lot of these characters that he’s been with for many years on the show. Because of where we are in the story, we’re able to tell some stories with our characters working together.

WS: You’ve gone from story editor in season two to now running one of the biggest shows in television. Tell us about that journey.
KANG: It’s been crazy and amazing! [Laughs] I had just read every issue of the comic before I was ever up for a job on the show. I loved the first season, and when the previous show I was on didn’t get [renewed], I had said this would be my dream job. It’s really satisfying to work on a show for a long stretch, because it’s fun to write for characters who get to change over time. And, at the same time, it’s been really gratifying to get to grow on this show myself as a writer and a manager, and to pick up all the skills that it takes to run the show. I think that most showrunners would say you don’t know everything—you’re constantly learning things. Making a show is by nature a collaborative process. There are so many different people who have to bring their unique skills to it. A lot of times I feel like I’m a cheerleader for people. Sometimes it feels like herding cats and sometimes it feels like you’re just sitting back and marveling at the things that other people have brought to the table and going, I never thought about that!

When you’re a lower-level writer, it can be scary and intimidating, because you’re with writers who have so much more experience with the story. It’s an interesting change to realize, Oh, now I’m the person who it seems like knows much more. But we’re all still just striving to tell a great story. You never feel like you’re doing it quite right—all you can do is do it with passion and hopefully with kindness to the other people you work with. That’s the fun part.

WS: There are so many storylines and settings within The Walking Dead. How do you manage your writers’ room and all of those different story arcs?
KANG: Before the season even started, I had a lot of conversations with Scott Gimple [the former showrunner, now the chief content officer for the franchise], since he’s overseeing the universe. I had been reading the comics, but I reread the section that we’re working on now for inspiration. There were general conversations about what themes are interesting, what section of the story do we tell. And then I dove in with some of my senior writers for a few days. We started very loosely talking about things once I had an overall shape for the season. And then from there, we brought in everybody. I have some new hires this year that I think are doing amazing work. And then we dive into it! We ask ourselves a lot of questions along the way and we try to look at the story. When we get into a section where we’re like, “Ugh, we’ve done a story like this before,” we look at how we can do it differently. I keep trying to challenge our room. If we’ve done a version of this type of story, is there a new way we can approach it? My approach to this season has really been wanting to play with time, with pace and with mystery. How can we really make it feel like every episode has something that’s a “holy shit” moment that propels the plot forward? How can we have things that you think you know the answer to but don’t? I also wanted to delve into some of the longstanding relationships we’ve had on the show and see how time has changed people. And how opinions can diverge and yet there can still be love and respect. Those were some of the story priorities we had this year.

WS: How has the relationship between the show and the graphic novel evolved over the years?
KANG: The array of characters who are in the comic versus the show has gotten more and more different over time. Daryl doesn’t exist in the comic, and he’s a major part of the show. There are characters who outlived their show counterpart or vice versa. So over time it’s become harder to do a literal adaptation of anything. But the adaptation has never been very literal. Robert Kirkman used to be in the room with us a lot early on in the run of the series, and he’d go, “I wrote that when I was like a kid; I would do that differently now!” He’s the one who challenged us to find the most exciting ways to adapt the material. So he gave us a lot of leeway and freedom, and that was gratifying. He understands that the mediums are different. That being said, there are certain things that he just nailed perfectly in the comics! What we want most of all is for viewers of the show who are also readers of the comics, when they see a moment on screen that is adapted from the comic, to feel the way they did when they saw the comic. To feel the sense of surprise or shock or delight or grief. That’s our guiding principle as we adapt what’s in the comic. But of course there are great characters and great plot threads, so we’re going to steal everything we can that helps us along the way! [Laughs] It’s an evolving process.

WS: I have to ask you about social because it’s a show that gets live-tweeted a lot. Do you pay attention to real-time fan responses or do you try to tune it out?
KANG: It would be a lie to say that I’m not aware of it at all. There’s no way to not be aware of it. And I do go on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. But I don’t seek out too much of the feedback, mainly because my days are packed with actual work! And then when I’m not working, I fill them with my family. Social media can be fun and it can also waste time in ways that can hurt your heart and not help with what you’re doing. I do hear about some of the noise. Some of the comments that are repeated a lot do come to the forefront. It’s just that for the sake of time and my own mental health, I’m not usually watching a live feed of comments. You can lose hours going down a rabbit hole of what people are saying in real time. My husband is actively on Reddit in sub-threads and will go, “People are saying this,” and I’m like, “You don’t have to tell me!”