Shane's dead, baby. Shane's dead. But you won't miss his antagonistic ways for long if the "Walking Dead" team has their way — that's because a new villain is on the way, and he's going to make Jon Bernthal's recently killed psycho-cop look like Captain America.
David Morrissey joins the third season of AMC's survival horror series as The Governor, the single-most iconic villain from Robert Kirkman's original comic books. He is the leader of Woodbury, a small community molded in the shape of the zombie apocalypse that houses, among others, a veritable army of killers including the long lost Merle Dixon — a character who looks positively soft when stacked next to the Governor.
"I can't give anything away, but I will say that he's charming, devious, sexy and unbelievably evil," actress Laurie Holden told MTV News about Morrissey's Governor, a character she shares plenty of screen time with in season three. "I think people are going to be knocked out, because he's a wonderful actor, he's fantastic. I can't imagine anyone else playing the Governor."
In developing the character, Morrissey didn't turn to the comic books, but the "Rise of the Governor" prose novel that delves into the ruthless zombie-killer's origin.
"As any actor, you like to work on your back story, and I had a whole book of it. That was great," he said, adding: "My inspiration and starting point for the Governor is all the scripts the guys have been writing for me. That's where it's born, really, for me. That's where I'm creating the character with the writers, [executive producer] Glen [Mazzara] and everybody else."
Mazzara weighed in on the Governor as well, saying that this is a man who believes himself to be the messiah.
"I think he believes that this apocalypse is all about him," he said. "This is his opportunity to become a great man in world history. He'll be the one to rebuild civilization. He'll be the one to lead people out of the darkness, and they conquered the zombies. Well, that's a tall order, for anyone. But that's what he wants. He feels that this is his opportunity. That makes him quite driven to achieve that goal. That's exciting to see what this man is willing to do to achieve that."
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