Where this was said
The Walking Dead and the Power of Total Commitment
At 32:10 · chapter starts 30:20
Will presses Bernthal on The Walking Dead as a turning point, and Bernthal says it was pivotal both professionally and personally. He married his wife — an ICU trauma nurse he met the day he returned from Russia — right after Season 1, and had his first child at the beginning of Season 2. He credits Frank Darabont for building a culture of total humility and total commitment to the premise. [1] — Jon Bernthal "The Walking Dead succeeded because every single actor was 100% committed to the premise — zombies are real and terrifying. If one person di…" 30:14 His key insight: put 6 or 7 people in the woods with zombies, and if even one person isn't 100% committed to that truth, everything falls apart. The show's tension came entirely from that collective belief. None of them expected it to become the juggernaut it did. Will calls the show's ability to sustain narrative tension 'taut,' and agrees that one distracted actor would have broken the whole spell.
