“I was a theater kid, so I started out writing plays,” says David Zabel. “But I started to think, what does a movie script or a play look like? Once I had access to those things to see how they worked, I started writing screenplays and had ideas for TV pilots. That pilot opened a few doors for me.”
An agent helped him get his first job on the series JAG, which later led to Star Trek: Voyager, Dark Angel, and ER. “It came out of my love for drama and dramatic theory.” All of this came from his love of telling stories to live audiences.
“That relationship between being a writer, how it’s performed, and how it’s perceived — where it worked, where it didn’t work — I consider that as one of my stronger points as a writer, which is writing for actors.”
Working with so many live performances, he started to see where actors needed fewer lines to portray the same emotions on stage and later in film and television. “If they understand what you’re trying to convey, it’s better to do it with the greatest economy of language that you can apply.” The same was true in the editing bay. “It’s humbling,” he jokes.
David Zabel
This economy of language certainly relates to the latest series created by Zabel, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. The spinoff series stars Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, where he was arguably the most stoic character on the series.
“It was an interesting challenge,” he adds about Dixon who is also now in a land where he doesn’t speak the language. “I felt like that was a classic American character. This laconic hero, the man without a name that you see a lot in Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, or Gary Cooper, and people like that.”
“I was excited for that kind of storytelling that wasn’t so expository. Norman, as an actor, relishes the idea of living in a world without ‘speechifying.’ That’s how he wants to play drama. The challenge is to put people around him who have stories that are compelling, that draw him into their story. He’s not looking to get into other people’s lives, and he’s not talking, so people have to be irresistible to him, for him to resonate with them. He’s the reluctant hero but he’s got a heart that makes him hard to walk away.”
As for actors who have been playing characters over a long period of time (about thirteen years for Norman Reedus), Zabel says, “You have to lean into the knowledge that they have. It was also true on ER and other shows I’ve done. We learn each other’s rhythms and it becomes symbiotic. That’s one of the joys of television, to dance that dance together.”
Spec Scripts and Spinoffs
Spec scripts, like those Zabel wrote for JAG and The West Wing in the late 1990s, are less common today, but the same idea applies for show runners taking over franchise spinoffs, such as Zabel here, and Michael Saronski on A Quiet Place: Day One.
Zabel, who wrote an Ally McBeal spec and an NYPD Blue spec in his early days, says, “The trick for writing a spec script is a real duality. On the one hand, you have to show that you can emulate the way it’s done – the vibe, the pace, the spirit… but you also want to show that you’ve got a spin you can add to it. Too far one way and you’re derivative and too far the other way, you’re not in the zone of the show.”
Despite the original series coming from Robert Kirkman’s comic, Daryl Dixon was never part of the original comic and for the most part, Zabel could take this where he wanted to take it. “There wasn’t much of a box,” he says. “The thing I was told was that they wanted a fresh perspective on Daryl Dixon in France.”
Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) Photo by Emmanuel Guimier/ AMC
As for the why, what, and how, it was up to Zabel to figure out the story for this trek from the Atlanta and Virginia region to France. “The only box I was really in was his previous experience and how the character existed before I came along. There was great freedom in how the story would lay out. There were no demands. It has to continue with what we know, but not get repetitive.”
In this new world of France, however, all of the characters are new to this universe other than the reluctant hero. The main secondary lead is Isabelle Carrière, portrayed by Clémence Poésy (In Bruges, Tenet). “I always wanted to do the backstory of Isabelle, as soon as the character presented herself.” This character and backstory was part of the initial pitch.
“I thought it was exciting to see the day the walkers come to Paris. Part of the excitement and intrigue of doing a show in a different place is that you want to see how it went down there. But, the beauty of it for me is that it wasn’t just bells and whistles. You are going to understand this character much better in that backstory we told in Episode Two, to fill out Isabella and connect that story to Daryl’s story.”
The Walking Dead in France
To further showcase how France accepted the walkers, the cold open of Episode 3 was one of the most demented scenes fans have seen. “That came out of a desire and what you see scattered throughout the show is elements that feel typically French culture and see how the apocalypse has affected them — things you’d only see in France.”
For an idea that started with “opera in a distorted world, trying to preserve the things they love,” we see the zombie orchestra. As “Bolero” blares over loud speakers, we see an orchestra built of zombies (attached to drums, violins, with a disembodied head on strings, torsos on horns).
Zabel adds, “With the orchestra, it was the idea of this person who loves music and was a conductor where his whole life was the beauty of a symphony. He’s struggling, alone, and a little twisted, but how does he get by? That’s where the idea came from. He’s keeping culture going, in his mind.”
Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) Photo by Emmanuel Guimier/ AMC
Greg Nicotero, the iconic prosthetic makeup artist behind The Walking Dead, is always thrilled to come up with a new look for the walkers. “Greg has a million notions; I think he gets very excited if you put something on the table that he hasn’t done before. I’m always happy to come up with something that gets Greg excited.” The same was true for the “ampers” in the series.
In the final two episodes of the first season, Daryl is introduced to the “ampers” or amped up zombies. Thanks to an injection from an unknown drug from French scientists, these walkers somewhat break the lore of the series as they shift from “walking” to running, thanks to the injection, which came from the evil scientific experiment historically, all the way back to Nazi Germany.
“There were conversations making sure I wasn’t changing the rules in a broad way. If I could explain it in a context, I could push the boundaries, but there are certain rules that aren’t going to change. They couldn’t, all of a sudden, be fast. The burners and ampers were a new thing, but we had to carefully explain why they are the way they are.”
The Comic-Con World
Although Zabel had written a TV series with James Cameron and worked on Star Trek, he says he was “naïve” of the Comic-Con world he was stepping into with The Walking Dead. “I didn’t think about it! Nobody talked to me about it, so I didn’t realize the attention to the show that was going to be received, which was amazing and exciting.”
Zabel went to a Comic-Con event in New York and says he was “in awe” of the fandom. “It didn’t blow me away, but I wasn’t prepared for it. The good part is that I never really worried about it. I’m not huge on social media, so I don’t search for ways to feel bad about what I’m doing,” he jokes. “Overall, the response was good though.”
The fans, who for years have said, “If Daryl dies, we riot,” are enjoying the new series. “We delivered pretty well for the advanced audience but also the more casual audience. I felt like we did what we wanted to do, which was to satisfy the existing audience and invite in new viewers.”
In terms of advice for writers breaking in today, Zabel realizes it’s hard to get scripts read. “The best way, in general, is to find somebody who has an agent and can talk to their own agent and help you out. I was just trying to help somebody out who knew somebody who knew me, but it’s not even easy for me.”
“I do think it’s crucially important to keep writing, which is a bit of a cliché, but it just takes one script to punch through the wall, and you don’t know which script that might be. It’s also good to have a range and not limit yourself too much. Don’t write every genre, but don’t just keep writing hard sci-fi over and over again if you can write other stuff.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio interview here.
