my guest tonight recently made her long
awaited
return to the walking dead as maggie
reed please welcome the very talented
lauren cohen how are you i'm good
yeah you say my name right conan people
don't have a few people
people say cohen right and when i was
younger and i tried to correct them i
said
cohen and they all said like conan the
barbarian and i was like well that's not
my preferred
reference but sure and then uh yeah like
a
shitty nickname well i was um i was
you know a teenager when the conan the
barbarian movie came out
and my life uh was hell
but the only uh upside to it was that i
had to get it i got in so many fights
that i developed the same physique as
the actual cone of the barbarian
and um i've kept it to this day i just
and the accent thank you yeah
that's right so good of you to know this
you know it's funny because i um i do
feel
very comfortable talking to you because
i talked to you
uh when you were first on the walking
dead
i think i think i might have been one of
the first shows that you came on
and obviously you were you're just a
very nice real person
so we got along right away but i
remember thinking when i first talked to
you
i don't think you'd been doing the show
that long at all you were kind of a
newbie
yeah kind of a newbie you were my first
talk show experience
legitimately it was the first and it was
it was very easy i will say
and i think that you reenacted a kill
with me
i think that it was right around the
time when our group was doing like a lot
of
you know yeah we were suddenly sort of
deluged by a bunch of new zombies
and uh and yeah it was it was fun it was
like
it's crazy to think about it that was
like 10 years ago i know um
yeah and yet still i'm only in my
mid-30s
uh don't laugh at that i'm going to edit
that laugh
out did you notice did you notice
that when i mean you've been doing it
for a while
when you first started okay and you're
brand new
on walking dead and you have to kill a
zombie
was your technique different than
say it is now that you're you're a pro
yeah because you have to keep yourself
entertained right so i'm just
i'm almost embarrassed by my like super
basic zombie kill skills from the
beginning
because they were just you know the
machete or just like
you know the the what would you even
call it if you're here like a
shish kebab shish kebab yeah i like to
shish kebab
yeah yeah yeah for and and that doesn't
even have to be for somebody
called bob i mean that can be for any
any name zombie
and and then we do like the the hearing
aid if you have like from ear to ear
like a little scoop right through um
so when these new people come i try to
tell them to use these and i give them
names and
um nobody nobody uses the names
it's it's weird they just they don't
they don't stick
i could be uh mine would be the puree
what i would do is i would grab a zombie
and i would force his head
into a professional chef's blender and
then i would push
puree and i would puree the zombie's
head for
25 seconds till it was a nice froth and
then i would pour that froth
on top of like uh a latte
and right right or freeze it into little
ice cubes so that when you have your
whiskey cocktail you can have a giant
a giant cube of your ideas
your ideas much better your idea is much
more no no no i like your idea better
because alcohol's involved so
right you took it up you took it up a
notch and i appreciate that
we actually um someone on my staff has
way too much time
on his hands and he put together a
montage
of your zombie kills and this is a true
testament
to your abilities as a true warrior
let's take a look
there's the shish kebab there's the
shish kebab oh my god
waffle maker oh that was a waffle maker
oh this is a obey street sign
you need more you know what's crazy and
this says something sad about me
i could watch that all day
and especially if you're having a bad
day and you have a lot of unresolved
anger
i when i when i watch walking dead and
you guys
take out 35 zombies in two seconds i
come down to dinner with my wife and
kids
and i'm so zen i feel
i feel you're relieved it's been a
cathartic experience
all my childhood they're not people yeah
exactly
they are people but luckily there's a
you know
there's there's sort of an allowance in
your mind for for the fact that
yeah you're also freeing them of being
the undead
that's the way i look at it yeah you're
doing them a favor you're doing them
yeah they don't want to be looking for
food no no the fact that they
seem upset when you kill them doesn't
make any sense but we'll work on that
uh how does it work because all of us as
you can tell i'm here in an abandoned
theater you look too
i think you broke in i'm in an abandoned
theater you broke into a movie we both
broke into these theaters to meet each
other
for this illicit tryst uh i'm curious
i know what it's like working during
covid it is very strange
but it's pretty simple i talk to you on
zoom i do some comedy on zoom
we're okay how do you do this show
during kovid i mean you're constantly
surrounded
by zombie extras people dressed as
zombies have they all been tested
yeah they've been very compliant
actually the zombies they've been
all negative for covent positive still
for
zombies
and playing along with all of our combat
protocol
it is just a trip too because everybody
when this all started they're like
lauren don't know what to do she's been
she's lived through a zombie apocalypse
for 10 years and and i'd love to say
that everybody was joking i really think
and i said i'm going on amazon and
buying bottled water just like the rest
of you
yes i know it's so funny that i hadn't
thought of this beforehand
but uh your show really is about
the spreading of this virus and uh
people turning into zombies
it makes covid look just downright
boring um
but it's so weird to me that you have
all these people
dressed up hundreds of extras dressed up
like zombies who've caught this virus
and then they all have to get nasal
swabs to test before they can shoot a
scene
okay you're a zombie but you're you
don't have covid so
you can come on through um
yeah i know you're probably aware that i
i got to uh to become
friendly with your former co-star my
good friend
yes yes uh stephen young and uh he and i
had a great trip uh to korea together
and uh i got to see up close what a
terrific guy he is
and um we had this really nice
experience but you guys
made it very special for him when he was
leaving the show
you you went to a lot of trouble you and
your cast
mates went to a lot of trouble to sort
of make it an occasion
well it's no trouble it's it's was
the moment that i think we are still
that was still the hottest goodbye we've
ever had on this show i won't
even talk about it too much because it's
interesting because his son being back
his son his his on-screen son has
brought up so many memories for
everybody of stephen being here
yeah and uh you know we do these like
death dinners for everybody so
we'll have sort of like a civilized
thing and everybody will give nice
speeches and we knew for stephen and
from michael cudlets who left in the
same episode we wanted to do something
extra special
um and as you guys know from your k-pop
days you and stephen
that don't know stephen and i did shoot
a k-pop video
together it took about 24 hours to shoot
it nearly killed us
um and uh but i know that that that man
loves to he loves to dance he loves to
sing
he's really into it yeah he is
really into it and we basically got
together
and all the girls sort of thought it
might have been deny's idea actually
and we just thought what's the best way
that we can sort of send these guys off
and so
we had a party at our producer's house
and we all disappeared to go and get our
costumes on
and learn like the final pieces of our
absolutely atrocious dance routine
to slowly re-enter the house one by one
verse by verse to perform backstreet
boys i want it that way
and stephen was actually crying we were
dressed up as
michael cudless character with orange
mustaches and orange
wigs i have the picture i have the
picture right here
i have you guys someone took a picture
and i've never seen
this video you're not allowed to show
the video we're not yeah you're not
allowed to show the video
and uh but i thought this was a rare
photo behind the scenes of you guys
saying goodbye
to steven uh and his character glenn and
you're all dressed as backstreet boys
but you've added
um you've added orange mustaches which
is a beautiful
we're abraham and that that t-shirt is a
photo that stephen took his favorite
zombie on the show and it's this zombie
just like sparking a cigarette and
smoking which is one of the best things
on
on our set it's like seeing a zombie in
a dr pepper
or zombie vaping or just like the most
random things that they'll do yeah i
love that
i love that yeah yeah you guys have had
such adventures you and steven i mean
you're you're you're spa what did you do
yeah we went to
we were naked together at a spa a wee
spa here in los angeles
and um he took me and uh
he said you're going to have an
experience
he took me to the spa and and he also
he's that's the night he stole my heart
and uh we had a really intense time that
was before we went to korea together so
that's how it starts when men go
to a spa together and they spend some
time with each other's bodies it ends up
with them traveling
around the world together let's take
this to the next level please
wait yes i'm just glad that he was okay
with it
because yeah um
have you thought about this how would
you like the walking dead to end
have you thought about what you need
you've spent
such a big piece of your life
with this character and in this reality
and now with it coming to a close do you
think about what would you like to
happen
i would like for there to be a cure
and maybe my mind has changed since
we've been going through
covid but i would love for their
for maggie's character not to die by
zombie right
and for there to just be some sort of
slow reveal of this
return to normalcy um
you sort of like find her in her house
just listening to dire straights and
85 years old and there's like some more
kids
and i don't know a couple german
shepherds i don't know
but i i definitely i just kind of feel
like it would be nice for
don't get me wrong i have definitely
imagined you know
rick returning and michonne returning
and the real kinds of things that would
happen
um but i'd love to see some cozy
you know maybe some people knitting yeah
it would be nice if it chilled out at
the end that's
i'm with you and as much as i've enjoyed
the carnage
uh i think the idea that that or else
bring modern politics into it so that
um there are zombie deniers people that
don't think it's a real
a real virus and it's very i want to say
that might kind of be the
be the vibe this year maybe not quite as
explicitly but we're definitely
taking an opportunity our writers to to
let
to let the world and inform the show
they always have but i feel like
i feel like it's an exciting year we
know we're we're sending off the show
and um and a lot of people are watching
that's really exciting
you know what i've i love the first time
i talked to you i really enjoyed talking
to you
uh you are a lovely person to chat with
you too conan uh the walking dead air
sundays are you by the way in that
theater legally or did you just sneak in
it looks like you snuck in they don't
know i'm here
good i'll get you out
the walking dead airs sundays at 9 00 pm
on amc and every thursday you can see
new episodes before they air
on amc plus lauren please come on the
show anytime with any project
because it always makes my day a great
one so thank you
yeah thanks conan thanks for having me