In just a few short weeks, fans of The Walking Dead will get to see the premiere of the latest show in the franchise, The Walking Dead: Dead City.

The series stars Lauren Cohan, reprising her role as Maggie Rhee. Maggie is forced to team up with Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to travel to New York City to rescue her son from a new villain known as the Croat (Zeljko Ivanek). Cohan discussed the show in a recent interview with The New York Post.

“For me, there’s this emotional component,” Cohan said. “All the vulnerability that’s involved in these characters’ lives … that’s something I take seriously, and I do really feel lucky to have been able to do this for this long.”

Cohan did leave the ensemble show The Walking Dead in 2019 to be a co-lead in the CIA drama Whiskey Cavalier, but returned after that show was canceled after its first season. With that experience under her belt, Cohan appears content to be a part of the crowd again.

“I don’t want to be a star,” she said. “If there’s a world where I can work, and be part of a team, and never get all the credit and never have all the responsibility, that would be a happy life.”

Cohan’s desire to be a team player might be moot, however, as AMC’s marketing campaign has her and Morgan front and center. In addition to being one of the new show’s leads, Cohan has also been given a promotion to executive producer. The upside, for Cohan is being able to be more active behind the scenes.

“I was invited to be involved as much as I liked in post-production, which is really where I dive in and get super excited,” she said. “I love watching editors work. I’ve shadowed directors a number of times. And I love just being involved in the minutiae of every creative decision. You know, how the prop master comes up with a functional but cool weapon that will make people say ‘wow!’ but also that suits the character. I’ve been able to be there and learn and be part of the conversation. It’s just a huge learning curve.”

Despite spending a decade on The Walking Dead, Cohan said Dead City also gave her some new experiences to explore. The urban environment in particular was something different.

“‘Escape From New York’ was a definite reference,” Cohan said “Being in a city as populated as Manhattan makes for big hordes of walkers that have to be corralled in different ways.”

Zombies weren’t the only thing that swarmed the set, however. In one scene sure to leave some fans with nightmares, Maggie and Neegan must deal with an army of roaches. Luckily, the creatures were created with CGI.

“That was a fun one to watch in post-production,” Cohan said “The augmentation in the sound of the legs, their shells scuttling together. I think there was a time when we thought about doing it with rats, but it was so much more insidious for it to be roaches.”  

Dead City will debut on June 18 and run for six episodes. Cohan said she has hopes that the series will get renewed for several seasons.

“We’re definitely set up to go beyond [the first season],” she said. “The TV landscape is a little different and a little more trepidatious than it used to be. But we’re really hoping the show does well and can lead to a second and third and fourth or fifth season. We feel like we’ve just cracked open the egg — now we should make an omelet.”