You sit through a Walking Dead binge-watch for too long and you might start to forget that these characters are actually normal people living fun and enjoyable lives, which sometimes happen to include acting on one of TV's most dark and dour series. Thankfully, AMC has always been pretty good about offering up behind-the-scenes photos from each season, and while some of those images can be series and/or gross, most of them are pretty damned hilarious. Take Andrew Lincoln standing next to his stunt double on the Ferris Wheel seen in last week's "Say Yes." Or double-take it, like we did.
That is too damned hilarious, seeing Rick Grimes and Rock Gromes standing together like that. (Or maybe it's Andy Lincoln and Randy LinkedIn.) Okay, so that's reallly Felilpe Savahge standing there in slightly larger clothes than the similar-looking ones that Lincoln is wearing. Although one would not be blamed for thinking that Savahge was actually created in a lab from just a sample of the sink hair left over after Rick's big shave-down in Season 6.
Someone should make a coffee table book full of TV and movie actors in recognizable roles standing next to their stunt doubles. Hell, The Walking Dead has had enough characters in it that just the ensemble cast could be a part of it. Someone call Simon and Schuster. No, not that Simon.
Here, Rick is standing next to another bearded guy, but one that he's usually meant to be cowering alongside, and not laughing hysterically with.
Since I already have a fictional coffee table book cooked up, I might as well also mentally 3D print myself a pair of Rick Grimes and Negan action figures in exactly these poses. I picture Andrew Lincoln saying something funny - perhaps the way he pronounces "leather" with his Brit-neck accent - and then Jeffrey Dean Morgan starts laughing and farting at the same time, which just makes them both start guffawing. And then Morgan sticks his ass back and farts on an extra. The real All-Out War starts here.
At least we've seen both Rick and Negan smiling this season, so it's not the most outwardly ridiculous thing to see those actors doing it. Below, though, we get something that The Walking Dead Season 7 was light on.
Norman Reedus hijinks, everybody! Hide your wives (unless you're into that) and maybe don't let him have access to your vehicle. (Here's why that last part is a rule.) Given how much of a prankster Reedus has been known to be around The Walking Dead set, one assumes that giving co-star Lennie James bunny ears for a picture was just him gearing up for something bigger, like blasting Seth Gilliam in the face with a crossbow full of silly string. I know that's probably impossible, but Reedus knows a guy.
Now that you've seen some of The Walking Dead's best behind-the-scenes shots from Season 7, head to the next page to find more.
Posing for a picture can be frustrating sometimes, since you never know when to give a big smile, when to play it straight, and when to stick your tongue out in a way that resembles the jaw-lacking walker on the ground next to you. As seen here, Christian Serratos chose to go the latter route, looking quite a bit better for the wear than the ghastly Walking Dead prosthetic on the ground. Alanna Masterson, meanwhile, chose to go with the potentially ironic peace sign, a normal pose in most corpse-free situations.
For one of The Walking Dead's random (but always connected to something) missions this season, Rick and Aaron hit up a houseboat for supplies, which led to the whole thing with the Heapsters and Aaron getting beaten. But for all that to happen, a lot of people had to get wet, and it definitely wasn't just the actors. As the surreal as all Hell image above shows us, water-bound sets in the zombie apocalypse require a bunch of shirtless crew members to wade around while mangled bodies float on beyond. A good backdrop for school photos and wedding pics, no?
It's rather strange, as we're in the final stretch of Season 7, that The Walking Dead has never called an episode "Splash," considering how many cryptic one-word titles will pop into the seasons. Seemed like that could have been the one with the Well Walker, or that one where it rained. In any case, it's a minimalist description for the image above, in which Walking Dead's resident couple Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira are dousing executive producer Greg Nicotero as if he's a Wicked Witch. Or as if he'd made one of them go through that whole water-logged houseboat sequence we just talked about.
While this moment right here certainly looks very innocent, with Walking Dead actor Josh McDermitt offering a bemused grin behind a jar of pickles, this pairing means something completely different within the context of the show. Because, of course, a jar of pickles was one of the first things used by Negan and the Saviors to make Eugene feel at home within the Sanctuary, where he also got to play video games and mess with fire. The way the actor is looking at the jar, though, I'm wondering if it's McDermitt himself that's mentally swayed by the brine, and not solely his fictional counterpart. He is Negan.
The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. While waiting to see what hilarity will come from the season finale's set photos - but most definitely not the finale itself - head to our midseason premiere schedule and find out everything that's hitting the small screen in the coming months.
