WALKING DEAD

STAR ON BREAKING OUT OF OLD ROLE

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ANDREW Lincoln says choosing to make a dark thriller in Scotland as his first TV series since finding worldwide fame in The Walking Dead was “a bit of a palate cleanser”.

The actor, who had his TV breakthrough in the 90s as Egg in This Life alongside Daniela Nardini, found superstar status as Rick Grimes in the zombie series that began in 2010 and became a phenomenon, spawning multiple other shows.

But after repeatedly turning down Coldwater, he finally agreed to star in the series, which is set in the Highlands and was shot last year in and around Glasgow.

Andrew, 51, said: “I wasn’t quite sure and said no twice. There were options to go back to America. Then I had a lovely hour-long zoom with writer David Ireland and couldn't walk away from it.

“It was a bit of a palate cleanser from Rick Grimes, to play something that is diametrically opposed to an archetype of a hero.

“I said to David, 'Is it a middle-aged Fight Club?’ and he went, 'Absolutely not,’ then came back the next day and said, ‘If Edward Norton and Helena Bonham-Carter had kids and moved to the Highlands, it might be that”.

Andrew was a jobbing actor, popping up in Love Actually, Teachers and ITV series Afterlife before the pilot of The Walking Dead was transmitted in 2010.

It made him the latest Brit actor to make it big in the US, following Dominic West and Idris Elba in The Wire, Hugh Laurie in House and Damien Lewis in Homeland.

He moved to Georgia, where the series was filmed, and initially his wife Gael and their children Matilda and Arthur lived with him in Atlanta, with the kids going to school there.

But as they got older Gael, whose father is Dunfermline-born Ian Anderson, the singer and flautist with Jethro Tull, took the kids back to Andrew's home city of London and Andrew quit The Walking Dead in 2018, although he reprised the role in 2022 for its finale and for a spin-off in 2024.