It’s rare that a pivotal character in a TV series is one who is only fleetingly seen, but that was the case with Madison Lintz’s Sophia in the second season of AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD. With those shows hitting disc this week, Fango chatted with the young actress about her much-discussed role.

Sophia, the daughter of Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride), disappeared at the end of the season premiere “What Lies Ahead,” and (SPOILER ALERT) stayed gone until the end of the midseason finale “Pretty Much Dead Already,” in which it is revealed she has been amongst the zombies kept hidden in the barn of farm boss Hershel (Scott Wilson). Speaking to us at New Jersey’s Monster Mania convention, Lintz recalls that she learned of Sophia’s fate “about a month before we shot it, which was good, because sometimes they just let you find things out from reading the script, so that was fortunate. [Executive producer] Gale Ann Hurd actually called and told us. I was sad because I wouldn’t be able to see everybody every day after that, but it turned out really well. I didn’t really know it was going to be that big a deal, though.”

The character’s transformation required the actress to go through the ghoul makeup process, including the face-casting process that has been known to freak out certain adult actors. According to Lintz, “That was a little bit scary, but I didn’t really have time to be claustrophobic. It was weird; I didn’t quite realize what was going to happen, and then I was in the whole cast and just had to keep calm for a little while, and then I was good.” Wearing the prosthetics themselves, she adds, “was a little bit gross, but it was a good experience, and I’m glad I did it.”

Lintz notes that by that point, she was used to witnessing the show’s extras being given undead makeovers. “I remember the first time I saw them, I walked into the lunch tent where everybody was being done up because it was going to be a really big zombie day, and it was really cool seeing them getting made up.” But she wasn’t required to attend the ghoul boot camp the bit players are put through to instruct them in the finer points of shambling and stalking: “I didn’t actually get to go to ‘zombie school,’ but it would be fun to have the chance to go someday!”

With Sophia resting in peace, and WALKING DEAD’s second season arriving tomorrow, August 28 from Anchor Bay on DVD and two different Blu-ray packages (see details here), Lintz will be seen in a pair of features later this year: the comedy PARENTAL GUIDANCE opposite Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei and DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK’s Bailee Madison, and AFTER, a supernatural drama that marks the feature writing/directing debut of Ryan Smith, son of popular Christian pop singer Michael W. Smith. “Basically, it’s about a girl who has grown up thinking she killed her aunt, and gets into a bus crash,” waking up in a strange, haunted town with another survivor. “I play the young version of her. It comes out September 14.” You can see AFTER’s latest trailer below and visit its official website and Facebook page. 

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