The AMC press guide describes the character of Dale in the following way, "He is wise, sometimes profound and is the respected elder of the group, though is also rather feisty, not afraid to speak his mind and call others out for mistakes in judgement." It continues with this, "Dale is a fairly self-sufficient man, and ever watchful of the changing dynamics among the survivor community."

It’s easy to see why show creator Frank Darabont immediately thought of Jeffrey DeMunn for that role. Jeffrey DeMunn exudes a sense of dignity and class in his performances, which Darabont is very familiar with. After working together on films such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Majestic, and The Mist, it was inevitable that they would team up again - this time for Darabont’s latest project, The Walking Dead. Darabont has even referred to DeMunn as his "good luck charm".

Jeffrey DeMunn has enjoyed a long career in acting, ranging from the stage, to television, to feature films. The Walking Dead is not his first foray into the world of horror/terror either. Besides The Mist, Mr. DeMunn has also appeared in Christmas Evil, The Hitcher and the remake of The Blob(co-written by Frank Darabont).

An admittedly shy and private person, Mr. DeMunn came across as a very thoughtful and warm person. It took many attempts, but I was finally able to secure this interview with Mr. DeMunn, once again courtesy of AMC publicist, Jill Dortheimer. Her help was invaluable in making this interview happen. I hope everyone will enjoy it.

Oh, thrilled. I’ve been doing this for nearly forty years and never done a series, you know. It’s a new thing, kinda fun. But mostly...God what a great bunch of people! We had a blast! Despite the heat, despite the conditions down there I couldn’t wait to get to work every day. So I feel pretty lucky.

Landing the role? What do you mean by that?

No, he called me up and he said ‘Do you want to come kill zombies in Atlanta?’, and I said sure.

Boy...there’s not a short answer to that. It’s a complicated thing. You approach it carefully and just learn what you can each step of the way, you know what I mean? I didn’t have a take on the character, so to speak, I just studied him up. He obviously had a pretty significant loss - lost his wife - okay there we go. Step two, you know, what else? He’s a fixer, he makes things work. Okay, what else? Just sort of put it together slowly.

Yeah, Frank’s involvement took away the worries. I know that when he gets people together they’re wonderful people and they treat each other well and they’re talented. That took away any real concern about it.

It was great. You’re moving at a different pace, but that’s okay. It was wonderful. It was fairly seamless. It’s like when you get together with old friends and you say that thing that we all say, ‘as if no time had passed’. It’s that kind of feeling. We just pick up the conversation where we left off. It’s a wonderful collaboration.

It was, it was! I wasn’t use to that. Yeah, that was new to me. I suppose it could cut different ways, but I think that for us anyway it helped to bring the whole team together, both cast and crew. Because we had to rely on each other too.

No, I don’t think so. As your doing something like that, at least for me as I was doing it, they don’t become compartmentalized. It’s like we did a long movie, you know, we shot a lot of scenes, but they’ve got seams between them. You see what I mean? It’s like it was all one story, because it was all one story. So I didn’t think ‘well here’s this episode, now this episode’...

I tell you one thing, I didn’t like it as much when we were indoors. That came as surprise, because we were all saying ‘oh man, isn’t it going to be wonderful to get indoors and get out of this heat’. We were working in the full sun most of the time and it was upper 90's or more and we were getting cooked. But then we got inside and we all missed it, we missed being out.

Yes it did! It was a tremendous uniter and yeah we got use to it(laughs). I spoke, actually at the time, with some of the crew about that and they felt the same way! It was strange, but the heat and the adversity did bring us together and, I don’t know, we were a team against it.(laughs)

Boy, I don’t know what his plans are. He’s dropped some hints, but I wouldn’t pass them on. I don’t know what’s happening or when, I just know it will be a good ride.

Oh, I think that would be nearly impossible, that would be an impossible task. He needs team mates.

I’m not particularly worried about it. He knows some terribly talented people and works well them and can bring them in and do it. So no, I’m not concerned at all.

It’s the human story, it’s the challenge. Zombies are sort of a metaphor. They’re a symbol of adversity and challenge and pressure that people have been under from many, many different sources ever since there were people I suppose. Wars or famine or whatever it may be...and it’s just watching human beings struggling against pretty impossible odds is an interesting thing to do. It’s fascinating.

Yeah, and Frank is obviously fascinated by that. You look at things like "The Mist". All of his stories he say’s ‘okay let’s take good, normal ordinary people and put them in a really tough situation and see what happens’. And of course what happens is that some people fare better than others and the second, third, and forth layers of skin are revealed under that kind of pressure. So yeah, it’s fun to work on.

No. I read a little bit of the illustrated book, I got the compendium and read some of that. But then I pretty much said ‘alright, let’s wait and see what the script is, let’s see what the story is’. So I did a little bit, but not much, Lee.

God knows...I am a combination of being a terribly self reliant person and I can also lose my cool under tough situations(laughs).

Yeah, there you go. There you go.

No, what did that rat say about me?(laughs)

Oh wonderful, yeah it makes me feel wonderful. Especially Andrew because I said to him, early on, shortly after I met him and watched him work, I paid him a pretty severe compliment and I said ‘I’m not going to say anything more ever about you and if you say that I said these good things I’ll say that you’re a liar’. I left it at that, but that’s just my way of saying that I have huge respect for him. Not only for the kind of work that he does, which is terrific, but his demeanor on the set, I gotta tell you. You know, the fish rots from the head and he is our head. He’s just wonderful! It’s not just that he treats people well and he’s nice to people and all that - he’s having a blast! If you’re with someone that’s having a really great time, that’s an infectious thing and I think it helped us all. It sets the tone and the tone is, ‘isn’t this a gas? I am having fun’. And we were, we did, and hopefully we will all next season

How would I sum it up?(long pause) It just was, I don’t know...the words all sound tripe when you try and put it together, but it was a joy - it was a joy. I couldn’t, I literally couldn’t, wait to get to work every morning. And I was walking out into heat that would just stop a horse and did nothing but guzzle water all day, and you’d feel light headed and then have to have Gatorade, or one of those or something, to get the electrolytes going. It was tough, but couldn’t wait to get to work!