‘Fear the Walking Dead’: Kim Dickens Discusses Her Return as Madison Clark

Last week on Fear the Walking Dead, fans had to say goodbye to an original character, Alicia Clark, and the actress who played her, Alycia Debnam-Carey, after seven seasons. But don’t worry, Fear got another Clark family member back in a surprising way in the Season 7 finale, thanks to the highly anticipated return of Kim Dickens as Madison Clark.

“I wasn’t interested in repeating a lot of stuff,” Dickens told Decider on the return. “I wanted to grow with the character, and their ideas, I thought, were really creative, really challenging and exciting.”

In the episode, and spoilers past this point, we don’t discover how Madison escaped certain death at the stadium back in Season 4, but we do find out that not only is she suffering from smoke inhalation, but she’s also been working for the mythical PADRE. For reasons unknown, they’ve been having her steal children… Which brings her into direct conflict with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) once she takes his daughter, Baby Mo.

Not only does this thrust two of the biggest characters in TWD universe against each other — initially — it also pays off on the promise of Season 4, which introduced Morgan to the series, only to have already “killed” Madison via flashback. Here, the two spar, team up, and ultimately head off to PADRE together, setting up the Georgia-set Season 8.

For more on what made her return, missing a reunion with Debnam-Carey, Madison’s new circumstances and more, read on. And be sure to read our interview with co-showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss on the finale, as well.

Decider: I talked to Colman Domingo a while back and it seems like he was key to getting you to return to the show. What were those conversations like?

Kim Dickens: I believe that the gentlemen [showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss] reached out to Colman first because Colman and I remained really close buddies, and I believe [The Walking Dead Universe chief] Scott [M. Gimple] and Ian and Andrew sort of asked him to check my temperature to whether or not I would be interested or willing to have a conversation with them. Colman didn’t know the degree, but he was super excited. He was like, “You need to call me right away!” So he goes, “Guess who’s asking about you on set?” and I said “Who?” and he said “They wanna know if you’ll talk” and I said, “Well… sure.” You know, I moved on and I finally let it go and I was completely caught off guard that they wanted to talk to me. And honestly, I had no idea what they wanted to talk to me about. It could’ve just been a flashback, it could’ve been an episode or something. But yes, Colman was the liaison.

What’s the thing that locked in the decision to return then?

I showed up on the Zoom, we all agreed on a Zoom to speak, and I just showed up and said “I’m here to listen.” They probably pitched their idea for like an hour to me, and I was blown away by it. It surprised me, their ideas, more than I thought. It inspired me. It was exciting to think about. I always loved the role of Madison and I just felt like they were really understanding her, and were gonna write for her in a sort of new way. In a 2.0 kind of way.

I wasn’t interested in repeating a lot of stuff. I wanted to grow with the character, and their ideas, I thought, were really creative, really challenging and exciting. I was in between jobs. It was deep in the pandemic, and I finished one and the timing was gonna work out for me, and they made it sound so enticing and delicious, the role and the arc, that I said “let’s do it.” I felt like they wanted to really honor the character as well, and we were all on the same page. These roles are really rare to come by, this sort of female lead in a genre piece, and I’m super excited to go back to it. A lot of the time we leave these roles, and I’ve been fortunate… A lot of the characters I played and all the shows I’ve done and recently I’ve got to go back and do Deadwood: The Movie, so it’s really fun when you get to go back to the ones you love, and there’s more story to tell. So I’m super happy to be back.

I think everyone is happy to have you back, but they were also bummed that you and Alycia Debnam-Carey were like two ships passing in the night here. Did you know in advance that you wouldn’t be sharing the screen with her again, at least for the foreseeable future? And what were your feelings on that?

You know, I didn’t have any firm information on that, and I’m friends with Alycia as well, and I know enough about where she was in her life and everything so it didn’t really surprise me. And I also think, that’s the way it goes! There’s story to honor, and there’s your life you have to honor. So I’m really proud of her, all the work she’s done is so impressive, and it’s just really stunning work. And I get it. It’s time for her to make some shifts. I was disappointed in a way to think, yeah, these characters can’t come together, because that feels to me, urgent. It does feel like, for me, that’s where I’d want to be in those scenes, I’d want to go back to that story and find those moments of those characters finding themselves. But if we can’t, we can’t. There’s other stories to tell. It’s just like Madison, her spirit continued to be a part of the story for other characters and inform them, I’m sure Alycia will still inform us. Here I sit, talking to you about coming back to the show so you never know, I guess.

On the other hand and almost the opposite direction, when you said goodbye in season 4, Morgan was introduced and you never criss-crossed there. In this episode, we finally get to very squarely focus on the two of you after all these years, so what was it like going up against Lennie James in this episode?

It was a long time coming, I tell you, because he and I were both upset that we didn’t get to work together in Season 4 when he came over, and we just couldn’t imagine that we didn’t get to work together. So it was a long time coming. I was really happy to know that it was going to be kind of be a two-hander with us. It was really cool to bring these two strong characters together in this antagonistic, explosive way. Such an incredible actor, Lennie James, that we fell right in step together, and had each other’s back, and fought like hell, and cried like hell, too. We enjoyed him so much. What a talent.

This is a very different Madison when we catch up to her on a number of different levels, but the physical level is very interesting just because you, as an actor, you’re wheezing, you’re carrying this big oxygen tank. What was it like changing this physicality of a character that you played so many years ago, in this new and fresh way?

It was a lot of challenges coming back to it. But that was significant, a significant change and therefore challenge for me. I thought it was a stroke of brilliance that the guys came up with. The oxygen tank is, you know, her obstacle but I thought it was kind of genius. That’s the way we translated her wounds, and I thought it was a really cool image, too, for her to have this oxygen tank, that you hear her before you see her. It was kind of eerie.

She has this sweet spin move that she does now where she takes down multiple zombies at the same time. What was it like learning how to do that?

Yeah, I mean Madison is back with a bigger hammer. And she’s got some 360 moves. I mean 360s, 180s, whatever. I love that, I love that she got some new skills along the way and it was fun. They always surprise me with the new kills that they come up, with but I really love that, I really love that 360 one, and I love the one in the sand.

I wanted to ask about that next. What was it like being buried in sand up to your neck? How did that actually work on set? Did they actually bury you? Was there a trick there?

Yeah, it was no trick. They create a box in the ground, so you sit on a wooden box and then they sort of stop the sand from going below your rib cage really, or your waist, so they sort of pile it up from the waist up. You know, once the sand is all around you, it’s too hard to get in and out in between takes, so I think I sat there for about 3 hours opting to not get in and out and go through the hassle of it. The sand that they push around you, they have to be safe. Special effects have to be safe, you can’t really run the risk of getting dirty bacteria, taking you down that way, so they have to create it as something that is food safe if it gets in your mouth or eyes or anything, and it was made from Chex mix and graham crackers. So everyone was starving when they had to come up and be near me.

The scene where she learns that Nick and Alicia are dead is so tough to watch, even though as viewers we know there’s at least a little bit of wiggle room with Alicia. What was it like playing that scene?

It was so well written, and the words kind of were able to take you there, to take me and Lennie there. It was just pretty simple that her life force, everything that Madison lived for, to come to the understanding that they’re no longer alive doesn’t get more devastating than that for Madison. We just leaned into it, and like I said, no better scene partner than Lennie James to hold you in those moments and to hold your eye contact and to hold the truth with you. My thanks go out to him for that scene, and that day.

At the end of the episode, Morgan and Madison are headed off to PADRE which seems like a big deal. I was curious, what if anything can you tease about that place, other than the fact that it’s going to look at least a little bit like Georgia?

[Laughs] Yeah, we’re changing locations, which is really cool. Our story has always been informed by location. We started in Los Angeles, went to Vancouver, went to Mexico, went to Texas, and now it’s Georgia. Definitely the terrain and the location will inform our story. And I don’t know, I’m as curious as you are as to what happens when we end up back at PADRE.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.