Walking Dead season 7: Andrew Lincoln's classically-trained actor friends think his role in the show is ‘hilarious’

'I am classically trained and yet I wear cowboy boots and a Stetson and I shoot zombies for a living'

Landing a lead role in a multi-season HBO/AMC etc drama is huge for an actor and incredibly lucrative, but it also means giving up the best part of a decade of your career.

That’s been trajectory of Andrew Lincoln’s, who started out doing a few plays at theatres around London and appearing in comedic roles (Teachers, Love Actually) before going the long haul with The Walking Dead.

He originally trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), and apparently his peers find his tenure on the zombie show quite amusing.

“I didn’t realize that I would ever play something for six years,” he told the Express ahead of season 7. “You come in with six years of history with an audience who sit there with that knowledge and it takes the pressure off somewhat and makes it more real in a sense.”

“I love it,” Lincoln continued. “And the people I trained with at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts think it is hilarious - I am classically trained and yet I wear cowboy boots and a Stetson and I shoot zombies for a living. I am a zombie-slayer so yes, it is [hilarious].”

He says hilarious, I’m sure his non-AMC drama-starring friends find it hilarious in a ‘cry themselves to sleep’ kind of way.

Following season 6’s dramatic cliffhanger, The Walking Dead returns for a seventh season on 23 October - you can read everything we know about it here.