For Season 2 of The Walking Dead: Dead City, we’re back with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dead Morgan) as they navigate the treacherous landscapes of Manhattan and deal with the island’s unruly inhabitants. We talked to Lauren Cohan about Maggie’s emotional journey this season, her shifting identity, and what major lessons she feels Maggie may finally be learning in S2.  

Q: The vastness of The Walking Dead Universe has become such an exciting aspect for fans; we get to stick with our beloved characters, but now we get to travel to far off places with them too. This season some of Manhattan’s most iconic locations like Radio City and The Metropolitan Museum of Art serving as the backdrop for the action — what did it mean to you to be back in the thick of it in NYC?  

Lauren Cohan: In Season 1, we see these characters enter New York and in Season 2, we see them really inhabit New York. We go deeper, down little alleyways, which also means we get to meet all the other people who are inhabiting New York and trying to wrestle for control of it. It's fun, because we’re playing with this idea of New York as the greatest city in the world — and what it means to bring power back to Manhattan.

Of course, in Season 2 we find the scope and scale expected with a massive city, but there’s also new ways that the Walkers operate, and we come up against even bigger challenges! We have a slightly longer season this year, so that really gave us a chance to bring in new characters and new performers. There’s also this really interesting aspect of New York becoming this golden island with a resource, so people are coming from the mainland to capitalize on it.  

Q: When the New Babylon Federation rolls into The Bricks at the beginning of the season we’re reacquainted with Armstrong and introduced to New Babylon’s latest mission, which like you referenced, is securing the methane production that's fueling Manhattan. Maggie’s relationship with Armstrong is so interesting — there’s distrust but there’s also history that proves to Maggie that he isn’t a true enemy. 

LC: For sure. They both have their hearts in the right place. I think there's a lot in common with these two characters in that respect. Their priority is what they can do to protect their families, either with them or back home. That’s part of the conversation that they have right off the bat where she’s really trying to get through to him and reason with him, like, "Where are your wife and your daughters? Why are we really going to Manhattan? What's the deal here?" She almost wants to just shake the answer out of him, like, "Do you really believe in this?" And "Are you being romanced by the promotion?" "What's really in your heart?" As the season goes on, they come head-to-head in a few ways. You almost just wish they could be in lock step with each other from the start, but that wouldn’t be as interesting! [Laughs]

Q: What’s so clear this season with both Maggie and Negan is that they take their roles as protectors very seriously. At this point it’s something that they really hold in common, and value and I think they recognize that in each other. But that doesn’t mean that Maggie doesn’t still have doubts about Negan’s true intentions and motivations. She’s seen inklings of his humanity shine through, but she’s also seen some of his old behavior crop up too and that would leave anyone nervous...  

LC: Oh yeah. When she goes back and she finds Negan, he's in a leather jacket, he's holding the bat. He seems to be holding court and having a lot of fun in this new group. When she goes back to the island, she’s worried and regretful, and remorseful for the decision that she had made to leave him there. You know? Not that she ever would have chosen him over Hershel, but that it was a pained decision.

So, when she sees him, all pumped up in front of those people, it's kind of this moment where she goes, "Oh, my gosh. I was wrong." I was worried about him and lo and behold, the situation was not what I feared. Obviously, she doesn't know what's going on behind the scenes. 

I think the challenge, perpetually for Maggie, is that everything in this world tells you that you can't trust. Everything in this world tells you that you have to keep your guard up and maintain some semblance of control to be "safe." Your whole psyche is so traumatized, that you’re looking for affirmation that you need to keep yourself closed off. So, it doesn't take very much to go in there hoping for something and feeling remorse, and then reacting like, "Nope, I was right! Back to protection mode." Because the scariest thing in this world is to unravel a little bit and make yourself vulnerable. Somebody's going to come up and shank you!

At this point, there’s only one person Maggie has left to protect and her whole identity is consumed in that. That was really the launchpad for Maggie this season and the place from which I'm excited to bring her story forward — she finds out this is not her only identity, to be this protector. That in order to be a good mother, she has to have all the other colors too, and she has to open her aperture.  

Q: The villains in The Walking Dead Universe are always so unique and so devious and Season 2 of Dead City is no different! This season we have returning villains The Dama (Lisa Emery) and The Croat (Željko Ivanek), but we also have a few new villains in the form of Bruegel (Kim Coates), another Manhattan player, and Narveaz of New Babylon (Dasha Polanco). Maggie has really intense interactions with ALL of them throughout the season — what’s your favorite part of playing against these bad guys? 

LC: We're so lucky to have gotten the actors that we got! These actors really relish these aspects in a character, and then they just take them to the next level. With Lisa, we were so excited when she joined the cast having watched her work in Ozark, and seeing how she manipulates and puppeteers things this season is incredible. The hardest part about working with Kim is that he's so lovable and he makes you laugh so much that when you're in these scenes where he's naughty, it's joyful, actually! And his enjoyment of it is completely infectious. Meanwhile, Dascha is committed so hard to that role, and it was great playing against her. With Maggie and Negan, you know them to be people that can survive different situations and scenarios, but then, you have the bad guys.

Q: Maggie’s relationship with Hershel is really put under the microscope this season. We see different sides of their relationship and there’s so much pain in every corner we explore. What was it like focusing on this mother/son relationship this season and how was it working with Logan Kim?  

LC: It's amazing to work with Logan, and I don't think the writers would have written this story if we didn't have Logan. We could see, just even in the last scene of Season 1, what he was capable of from his audition. He’s a very, very thoughtful man, and a very smart actor. So curious, and so willing. When he and Mahina [Napolean; aka Ginny] come into this world, it's a hard level of emotion and context, and they absorbed it so readily, to the point that you sort of want to protect them from it too. They're children, but they're also young people and great actors. You just want to support them striving to meet the moment.

Working with Logan in this particular storyline was interesting to me because of the pain of the situation that we're in. We get to start the season with Maggie and Hershel actually remembering something from the time that they were out on the road, and you understand what they're protecting. We unpack a lot throughout the season. Their relationship has been impinged by Maggie and Negan's dynamic. It takes the wisdom of her son to help her see that, and the needs of her son to help her see that.

All she wants in the world is to protect her son, and she finds that it actually comes about in a way that she didn't expect. To protect her kid she can’t stay hard, she has to open up and to listen, and to be willing to do things differently, or try things differently, or hear something that she wasn’t hearing. 

Q: Every season and iteration of The Walking Dead Universe gives you another opportunity to explore new elements of Maggie. But I would assume that this is a character that you're so intimately connected with at your core after playing for so long. Even with that familiarity, what do you do as an actor to get yourself into Maggie head space, and how do you prepare yourself for a new season of emotional and physical upheaval for both yourself and for your beloved character?

LC: For me a lot of it is about going back on location and putting on my wardrobe. Of course, it starts when I’m reading the scripts and just imagining things. I get to imagine the experience of being in a new location, because we're in New York City and it's a different place for Maggie and Negan, and we’re not as comfortable there. We don't have people around us that we know; we’re up against it all with no allies. I think that, for Jeff and me, we've really become homing devices for each other, and we lean on each other. 

The writers are tasked with taking the story to a new place that's familiar but also stretches expectation. As you read the scripts you get to absorb each new piece of information, and with that comes the opportunity to say, "Okay, we're telling the story of a mom who did everything to wrestle her son from the grips of a cult leader, and she made a sacrifice of someone who she may have been on the road to finding a different kind of dynamic with. But the most important thing for her was to get her son back. Now that we're here, what does this mean? And is this going to be everything that she hoped it would be?"

I think, sometimes when the story takes turns like that or adds new elements, it's your opportunity as an actor to refresh things. But you'll always be you, you know what I mean? It’ll always be Maggie, but with a new question to answer.  

The Walking Dead: Dead City airs on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. Episodes are available to stream on amc.com (with a cable provider login), and the AMC apps for mobile and devices. You can also watch episodes via AMC+ at amcplus.com or through the new AMC+ app available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku plus Samsung and Vizio smart TVs. AMC+ can also be streamed through a variety of providers, including AppleTV, Prime Video Channels, DirectTV, Dish, Roku Channel, Sling, and Xfinity. Sign up for AMC+ now.