Showrunners ‘Started Talking About’ Madison Return Years Ago
- In December, AMC announced that Kim Dickens will reprise her role on “Fear the Walking Dead.”
- Dickens was killed off the show on season four, to the surprise of the star and fans.
- Showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg told Insider they’ve considered her return for seasons.
It’s finally happening. Kim Dickens is returning to “Fear the Walking Dead.”
After seemingly getting killed off the show on season four, AMC announced in December that Dickens will reprise her role as protagonist Madison Clark on the series’ seventh and eighth seasons.
How did the “TWD” spinoff go from killing off one of its main stars to bringing her back?
“Fear TWD” showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg told Insider that Madison’s return was something they had internally considered for years before speaking with “TWD” universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple.
“We started talking about it seasons ago, the possibility that Madison could have survived the stadium and, if so, what that story would look like,” Goldberg told Insider over
earlier this month.
“We did bring Madison’s story to a conclusion in a sense, but it was just a chapter of the story. It was not the full story,” Goldberg added.
As the series returns from its hiatus, we asked Chambliss and Goldberg to walk us through the long journey to bring back Madison.
We discussed how much we’ll see of Madison in the back half of season seven (they promise her appearance won’t be fleeting), how “Fear TWD” star — and Dickens’ close friend — Colman Domingo, was instrumental in bringing the star back to the series, whether or not fans may have played a role in helping to orchestrate her return, and if the pair ever thought they had made a mistake in “killing off” Madison.
It was hard for Chambliss and Goldberg to keep Madison’s return a secret for over a year.
Richard Foreman, Jr/AMC
Insider: I have a feeling you both know what a lot of these next 10 minutes or so are going to be about.
Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg: laughter
We have to talk about Madison. How hard was it to keep her return secret?
Goldberg: Very hard, very hard. With you in particular.
Chambliss: Yeah.
Goldberg: It was really hard to figure out how to tap dance around the question of when Madison was coming back, because it was something that we had been planning creatively for a while.
It was a story that we had wanted to tell and we’d found the right time and the right story for Madison’s return. But, we had to keep it a secret well over a year. And then of course there was the process of approaching Kim about it and the logistics of making sure she was interested and available. And then, finally, we were able to put it out there and we’re very excited that now we can talk openly.
Colman Domingo initiated the conversation with Dickens after Chambliss and Goldberg discussed the idea of bringing her back with Scott M. Gimple.
Peter Iovino/AMC
I had been waiting for this moment to speak with you both since early December when I first learned the news about Madison’s return. We’ve had a bit of a back and forth about this. It started as a fan question, really. And then I was like, “Wait a minute. These aren’t the responses I’m expecting to be getting from you guys.” I was wondering if there was something going on.
Can you take me through that timeline a little bit more of when and why you first considered bringing Madison back? When did the idea go from a thought to something more serious to “OK. We have Kim interested.” I believe she did a Zoom with you guys and Gimple in January 2021. I first asked you guys about this in November 2020.
Chambliss: I think in terms of like a story idea, it’s something that we had been talking about seasons ago, but we never quite had the story or the way into it. And we were just kind of then looking for the right way to bring her back and the right story to a tell — kind of the place in the show where it would make sense, where the thematics would support it, where everything would kind of come together.
I think as we were getting towards the end of working on season six, it was really starting to feel like where we were going. Things were starting to make sense. That’s when Ian and I started talking about it a lot more. We started talking about it with Scott Gimple. Then, when we felt confident in the creative, that’s when [“Fear TWD” star] Colman [Domingo] reached out to Kim and we had an initial conversation with her.
In January of last year, we had a Zoom with her where we pitched her kind of the core of the idea of what the story would be. From there, it was all about kind of working out the logistics of it and hoping everything aligned practically so we could actually do it. It was a reality that we knew about for almost a year before we were able to tell anyone.
The fans played at least a small role in helping to bring Madison back. Madison will be a bit changed when we see her again.
Justina Mintz/AMC
Andrew, you defended writing Kim off the series in June, 2018, to The Hollywood Reporter.
At the time, you said, “Madison’s story has come to an end. There were thousands of walkers in that stadium that were feet away from her just before they went up in flames. So Madison died making that sacrifice for her family.”
How do you go from that in 2018 to a complete 180 a few years later? Was there a part of you guys that thought, “Man, maybe we made a mistake”?
Goldberg: I think it goes to what Madison herself says, which is, “No one’s gone until they’re gone.”
Anyone who’s a fan of “The Walking Dead” universe knows if you don’t see somebody die, anything is possible. What we felt as we were telling these stories and continuing to see Madison’s influence on the characters that survived her after the events at the stadium happened is [that] even when Madison wasn’t on the show, she very much still continued to cast a real influence.
So let me just try and clarify this. Did the fans have a significant impact on bringing Kim Dickens back or did you feel some sort of responsibility to the fandom? Because Kim, when she was on “Talking Dead” thanked the fans for their commitment.
Chambliss: Yeah. I think, to a certain extent, just seeing how part of the fabric of “Fear the Walking Dead” — Madison is what kind of kept her alive in all of our conversations about the story.
As we were having those conversations and things started to point to an opening for her return, it definitely felt like this was a story that fans would like and be excited about and that got us excited, too. I think the thing that we’re excited about is bringing Madison back.
All the characters who’ve continued on the show have changed in some pretty fundamental ways since Madison made the sacrifice for them in the middle of season four. Just as much as they’ve all changed, when we find her, she will have changed because there’s going to have been a journey that she has been on that we will not have been privy to. A large part of her return is asking the questions: What has that journey been about? Where does that leave her as a character? How does that shape her going forward and how does that shape the show going forward? It’s gonna provide a really big signpost for where the show is going forward.
Chambliss and Goldberg developed Madison’s return story with Dickens as AMC worked out the business side to bring the actress back.
AMC
When you spoke with Dickens for the first time after Colman initiated that talk, what was that conversation like? Were there reservations there? Were there concerns that this may feel gimmicky bringing her back or inauthentic? Were you both nervous to speak with her?
Chambliss: I think approaching that conversation, we had become very invested in the story. So, we were nervous in the sense that we wanted her to respond to it and get excited about it. Kim had always been incredibly professional and gracious to work with. So, we weren’t worried about that side of the conversation.
Very quickly, we started talking about the creative because, as Kim said, she was just very excited about the idea of revisiting Madison’s character and seeing where she’s been and the journey she’s been on. And, as we got into the conversation about the creative, she got excited, we got excited, and kind of fed off each other. We left that call, from our side, feeling very confident that Kim was excited about the idea of bringing Madison back.
And, I don’t want to speak for her, but it felt like she left that call with the same kind of mindset. Then, very quickly, we were able to kind of hand things off to AMC for the business side of things. But we continued to kind of develop the creative and that was the fun thing because we had that conversation with Kim so far ahead of time. It was well before we actually wrote her return. So, as we were continuing to develop it, we were able to kind of call her and run her through it and kind of continue to build things off that way.
The hardest part was — we had it all locked down and it wasn’t just about keeping the secret from you every time we spoke, but it was also waiting to shoot it. We were sitting on this script for a very long time, very eager to see Kim play Madison again and having to wait.
We will learn where Madison has been since the fallout at the stadium on season four.
AMC
Can either of you share if we will get to see how Madison survived being surrounded by the dead in some sort of flashback scene or where she’s been all this time? It has to take a lot to keep a mama bear from her cubs.
Goldberg: I think the best way to answer that — and this is not a dodge — but the best way to answer it is Madison has been on an incredible journey since that night at the stadium to where we find her in season seven. And that is absolutely a story we’re gonna tell when we meet her.
In fact, we’ll get into a great deal of that when we meet her this season. We’re gonna know what she’s been up to and why she’s become the person she’s become.
Chambliss: One thing that we saw in the trailer, in that little glimpse we saw of Madison at the end, she had those tattoos of Nick and Alicia on her wrist. Obviously, her children are kind of first and foremost in her mind. So, the question you ask about what would keep a mother bear from her children, that is a very good question, and that’s gonna be a large part of her story.
Madison will not appear in just a cameo in the next eight episodes.
AMC
Fans wanted me to if we’ll have to wait a long time to see Madison. We’re not going to just see some flash of her at the end of the season seven finale, right? I think that would upset so many people.
She will not appear in just a flash. When she appears, it is going to be in a major, significant way. It will not just be a cameo. I promise you that.
New episodes of “Fear the Walking Dead” air Sundays on AMC at 9 p.m. The next two episodes are currently streaming on AMC+. You can follow along with “TWD” universe coverage here. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
