While I was watching the Liam Neeson film The Grey recently, I knew that I recognized one of the other actors roughing it with him in the Alaskan wilderness, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where I knew him from. I was 3/4 of the way through the movie when I realized “Ah ha! It’s that nerdy guy from Woodbury on The Walking Dead!”
As it turns out, the actor’s name is Dallas Roberts, and although he’s slightly nerdy in The Grey, he’s less so than his brainy character Milton Mamet on The Walking Dead. Milton is for all intents and purposes The Governor’s right hand man and confidant, although surprisingly he’s not really a tough guy. He’s a thinker, and honestly from what I can tell, a huge coward. He’d rather live in perpetual fear under the rule of a messed up dictator with his creature comforts than stand up to a man like that. Roberts plays him with a constant air of uncertainty which I like though, where you can tell that Milton is constantly at odds with himself about whether he should keep listening to The Governor’s orders.
AMC posted an interview with Dallas Roberts this week which he discusses his character a bit and working on the show. For the most part there’s no earth-shattering revelations here. Roberts admits that playing an egghead came easily since he was one growing up, and that he wasn’t expecting to have a role on the show which interacts very little with zombies. He does throw in a couple of amusing anecdotes however. One is about the playful off-screen rivalry between the Woodbury folks and the prison crew. While the other one references how Roberts initially got into The Walking Dead comics through his character on the show Rubicon, which I’ve never seen. That’s a cool connection to have and it’s nice to hear at least one person acting on the show that legitimately enjoys the comics.
The final question of the interview with Dallas Roberts, poses the issue of whether there’s any danger of Milton turning into a mad scientist. I won’t ruin it, although suffice it to say it’s both humorous and accurate.
What do you think of Milton so far? Is he a coward? Is he evil? Do you think he’ll eventually grow some scruples and sell out The Governor?