Walking Dead: World Beyond star Alexa Mansour has opened up about the "gruelling" audition process for the spin-off show.
The new series, which will premiere on Sunday, October 4, is set 10 years into the zombie outbreak and follows a group of youngsters as they navigate the post-apocalyptic world. One of those characters will be Mansour's Hope, a rebellious, trouble-making, fun-loving individual who's haunted by a dark secret.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Mansour revealed how she came to be cast in the role, after being rejected by other Walking Dead shows.
"Every time that I auditioned for the original show, there was always something that didn't really feel right with me," she said. "They would always say, 'You were great, but you just don't fit the role.'
"And then when I got called into this "Untitled Walking Dead Project" – this was after like three years of auditioning for the other two shows – I read the character, and how fun and funky and kind of rebellious she was, and I felt super-attached to her.
"I think I worked a lot harder on this one to begin with. And I just felt like I could make this character my own and have a lot of room to grow with her."
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Asked what the audition process was like for World Beyond, she said: "It was gruelling. I started in April when I had the first audition. So two months go by. And in June, I get a call from my manager, like: 'Yeah, Scott [Gimple], Matt [Negrete] and Jordan [Vogt-Roberts], the director of the pilot, want to meet with you.'"
She continued: "I always make the mistake of Googling people before I go into the room, and I saw Scott, I saw Matt, and I saw Jordan – I mean, Jordan had directed Kong [Skull Island] – and I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm going to be in a room with these amazing people. You need to get your crap together and do an amazing job.'
"I'm in the room with three different people, all actors that I've known for a while, just to kind of get me ready, and get a different perspective. So I went and did that. It was great. Scott, Matt, Jordan and I, we all got along really great, and the audition was amazing."
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The actress went on to explain how she went from feeling insecure to confident, but the audition soon took a daunting turn as she was put in front of AMC numerous times before deciding if she was right for the role.
"That's when I went in and read with all the other people that were going to play the other characters, to see if there's any chemistry. I went in – and, usually after that, you've either got it or you don't," she said.
"I go in there, and I get a call from Scott and Matt, like: 'Listen, AMC love you, but they don't know if you're edgy enough, so we need to redo another audition.
"I was like, 'OK, this is number four, at this point.' So the next day, it's completely new scenes and totally different things that I had to learn. I went in there, and it was basically a two-hour audition of me crying. They were really sad scenes."
She added: "I remember leaving there, and I was like, 'Man, if AMC doesn't think I'm edgy enough after this, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to have to rob a bank or something.' But I got the call the next day that I got the job, and it was so worth it."
The Walking Dead: World Beyond will premiere on Sunday, October 4 on AMC in the US. UK viewers can catch up weekly with new episodes every Friday on Amazon Prime Video.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
