The Walking Dead Season 5 Round-Up: EW covers, plus new image and clip

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

If you're a big The Walking Dead fan, and can't wait for the fifth season to start in a couple of months, I have some goodies for you this morning. Entertainment Weekly has released the four different covers for their latest issue, featuring most of the key players from the AMC series, including Norman Reedus' Daryl Dixon and Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes.

Take a look:

The new issue of EW also provides us with a first look at The Wire's Seth Gilliam as Father Gabriel Stokes. In addition, EW spoke with Gilliam, and he talked a bit about landing the part, as well as how he prepared for the role.

On if he's read the comics:

I only read the comic book where Father Gabriel was introduced, which I think was episode 61 in the comics. I didn’t read anything before that, and I haven’t read anything after that. I discovered from reading about the show that often times characters’ names and journeys are kind of crisscrossed and mismatched, so I thought if I did read too much I might be giving myself a lot of information that would be useless, or just outright wrong. So I figured, like with everything, I’d just take the script and try to fill him out the best I possibly can.

Gilliam on when he read for the part:

I actually did not realize I was reading for the role of Father Gabriel during the casting process. The sides were for a school guidance counselor named Michael, who had an issue with a couple of his students. I had not seen the show before I was cast on the show. So I just thought, Okay, I guess they’ve discovered some guy who’s holed up at a school or something like that and was carrying around this horrible exchange that he had with his students. [Laughs]…I got a call from Gale Anne Hurd after the offer was made to me to explain who I would be playing. And that was about maybe a week after I had auditioned.

On binge watching the show:

I watched the first three seasons on Netflix in a week. And season four was not available on Netflix at that time. I watched season four on a weekend when I got down to Atlanta and started working. And I actually started working before I was able to watch the fourth season…The binge was intense, man. It was intense. I thought, well it’s a zombie show. It’s a show about zombies. And then I watched and I was like, this show is not about zombies at all, really. The show’s about a whole lot more than just zombies, which I was really excited by.

If that wasn't enough, AMC has also released a new clip from the upcoming season starring Chad Coleman's Tyreese. It's very short and is more of a teaser than a full-blown clip, but I'm sure a few of you will be interested in checking it out.

The fifth season of The Walking Dead will premiere on AMC on October 12, 2014.