‘The Walking Dead’: AMC Sits Down With Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes)

The Walking Dead‘s Sarah Wayne Callies, who plays Lori Grimes on the hit show, recently sat down with AMC to talk about her character’s fate. Caution: If you haven’t seen this week’s episode, “Killer Within,” don’t proceed. Major spoilers ahead.

As viewers of this week’s episode know, we lost two, possibly three, members of Rick’s group. Actress Sarah Wayne Callies sat down with AMC to talk about her character Lori’s demise on the show last night.

She recounted what it was like to watch her character die on the show:

“It was interesting because we shot [Episode 304] in June. There was a whole emotional process of getting it together and shooting it, grieving and saying goodbye to everyone. That process was more or less complete a while ago. And then I sat down and watched it! I was nervous because I was expecting it to hurt, but I was so proud of Chandler [Riggs] and proud to say I was a part of helping to build that show … Pride and gratitude were what I came away with.”

She also recounts on learning her character would be dying this season and putting that news into perspective:

“I was at a refugee camp in Thailand in February. I came back and got off the plane and basically did an interview right away. I got off of that call and got one from Glen Mazzara, who said we’re going to lose Lori. It was an interesting sequence of events because my mind was not on the show at all; it was wrapped up with issues about medical care and gender safety … I think it put it in its proper perspective: which is that it’s very hard and very sad and it’s a television show. I’m grateful I got to do this for two and a half seasons.”

She also described the difficulty of keeping the secret from family and friends: “There have been a lot of questions that I’ve had to answer really creatively. I’m really relieved that I can stop doing that now.”

Callies also shared the show’s tradition for sending off cast members:

“We started having death dinners for everyone who got killed off the show beginning in Season 1. After some one’s last episode, all the actors would go out to dinner together and raise a glass to them. Those dinners became a big tradition. We’re a bigger cast so we have to be a bit more private.”

On the difficulty of playing a pregnant woman versus actually being pregnant:

“The belly — the pregnancy rig — was a trip … They had the belly in foam originally, but I told them to put the fifteen pounds in — the way a baby would weigh — so I don’t have to act it. It jacked up my back pretty good. But playing a pregnant woman is way easier, because you can take it off.”

And her favorite memories from her time on the show:

“One of my favorite moments was watching Andy Lincoln drive! I think he got his license about a year before we started the show. And he’s English. Watching Andy try and drive the Cherokee was hilarious. At a certain point we had to pull it over because green flames were coming out of the hood. He’d never really get it into gear because the labels that showed you what gear you were in were gone. In a late episode last season, Lori is on the porch while Rick and Glenn are leaving to go after Hershel. I’ve said goodbye to Rick and he’s supposed to drive away, but he couldn’t get that thing into gear! He was just staring daggers at me.”

The Walking Dead airs Sunday’s at 9 pm on AMC. You can catch full recaps of each episode every Sunday night here at The Inquisitr, and keep coming back for episode sneak peeks throughout the week.