Family foremost in zombie spinoff ‘Fear the Walking Dead’

TORONTO – “Fear the Walking Dead” star Kim Dickens doesn’t necessarily fear zombies, but she did fear starring in a zombie TV show.

It took several pitches to get the veteran actress to consider auditioning for the L.A.-set prequel to “The Walking Dead,” the AMC smash about a zombie-fuelled apocalypse that suddenly takes over the world.

The “Deadwood” and “Sons of Anarchy” star says showrunner Dave Erickson and director Adam Davidson had to cajole her into considering the project, and once she examined the script she was seduced by “the greatest character ever.”

“My instinct was at first, like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t think I’m right for that one, that genre,’” Dickens says in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles.

“I felt the same way about (watching) ‘Game of Thrones’ — ‘Oh, fantasy is not really my genre’ — but I love it so much. You just get drawn in by these well-drawn characters that are so great. It’s definitely the appeal of ‘The Walking Dead,’ too, the combination of the genre with the wonderful writing.”

Dickens plays Madison, a widowed mother to two teens — one of them a junkie who can barely survive adolescence, let alone a mysterious viral epidemic that seems to turn sufferers into snarling cannibals.

Cliff Curtis co-stars as Madison’s boyfriend Travis, a divorced father whose teenage son is reluctant to join his new blended family.

In charting the origins of “The Walking Dead”‘s apocalyptic onslaught, Erickson says he was keen on crafting a family drama — albeit with zombies — that a broad audience could sink their teeth into.

“There was something interesting to me about a dysfunctional blended family that’s trying to come together and failing to do so,” Erickson says by phone, also calling from L.A.

“And then the great irony of the show is the only way they come together is through the apocalypse.”

Despite shared DNA with the Georgia-set “The Walking Dead,” this is a different show, with “a different kind of tension,” he continues.

“Tonally, we wanted to play the shark you don’t see — we wanted to play the anticipation and the paranoia that goes along (with) living … in a major city,” says Erickson.

“The thing I love about the pilot is everytime we go to a wide shot and we look at the crowded freeways and houses stacked on the hills, I think the audience is watching this knowing full well that pretty soon all those people are going to be dead. It’s quite macabre but it carries a certain weight and I think it adds to the urgency.”

Season 1 starts at around the time Rick Grimes in “The Walking Dead” was shot and put into a five-week coma, says Erickson.

He says it won’t feature any plot or character crossovers and fans shouldn’t expect clues about what started the disaster in the first place.

Erickson says co-creator Robert Kirkman insisted the tale refrain from veering towards patient zero, or talk of possible cures.

“It’s not about: How do we fix it? It’s about: How do we live with it? How do we come to understand it and then how do we explore our own character and how do we not become the monsters ourselves?”

“Fear the Walking Dead” debuts Sunday on AMC.