Andrew Lincoln has never watched The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) has never seen an episode of the show, despite spending eight years as the main character. Find out why.

The Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) has never seen an episode of the hit AMC show, despite spending eight years as the main character, with a trilogy of movies about his character on the way.

Lincoln left The Walking Dead in season 9, episode 5, “What Comes After,” after Rick was left struggling for life after blowing up a bridge heavy with walkers. Unknown to any other members of the community, Jadis saves Rick and carries him away in a helicopter, setting the stage (presumably) for the movie trilogy. Believe it or not, Andrew Lincoln has never seen this, or anything leading up to it, because he hates to watch himself onscreen.

In 2017, when The Walking Dead was about to air its eighth season, Andrew Lincoln sat down with TV Insider to chat about what we can expect, including a flash-forward fantasy scene that saw Rick as an “old man” living the life of his dreams. As we know now, that scene was just a fantasy of what could’ve been, but at least we got to see Rick as an old man, something Lincoln revealed that he “couldn’t bear” to watch. “I’m choosing to ignore the whole thing,” he said. “I couldn’t even look at myself in the old-age makeup. Couldn’t bear it. I don’t watch the show at all. I am allergic to my own face.”

We hoped that maybe, since leaving the show, Lincoln found the time to sit back and watch his fantastic performance, witnessing himself yelling “Carl” too many times to count. Unfortunately, that’s still not the case. At this year’s Comic-Con@Home, AMC’s Chief Content Officer Scott Gimple confirmed that Andrew Lincoln had yet to catch up. “No, he has not watched it,” Gimple confirmed. “I will say, one time I was doing a DVD commentary with him on an episode he wasn’t in, ‘The Grove.’ Five minutes into it, I was like, ‘You’re not watching this, are you?’ He’s like, ‘No, no I’m not.'”

Well, then why are you on the DVD commentary?

Anyway, there’s no better time than now for Andrew Lincoln to watch The Walking Dead, with Rick Grimes on the verge of his big screen debut. And don’t mistake Lincoln not watching the show for him not loving it; Gimple recently said that the actor is “super involved” in the story for the movies. “He throws around the football with the rest of us. He’s very, very invested in this thing.”

Elsewhere in the Walking Dead universe, Deadline reports that season 11 is set to resume filming in Georgia in October. “Our ability to resume in the safest possible way is something we are closely focused on,” said AMC CEO Josh Sapan. “We will continue to monitor and adjust accordingly depending on local circumstances.”

You can watch the long-awaited season 10 finale of The Walking Dead when it airs October 4, along with six additional episodes in season 10 airing early 2021!

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