How The Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln survives stardom

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in Walking Dead. Photo / Supplied

Anyone who grew up with quality 20-something British dramas of the 90s and early noughties will remember Andrew Lincoln fondly. He was the adorable Egg in This Life (1996-97), the boy-least-likely-to in the revered 32-episode BBC series about a bunch of young lawyers sharing a flat in South London. While the bumptious Miles (Jack Davenport) and the rapacious Anna (Daniela Nardini) were thrusting ahead with their legal careers, Egg was dropping out, flopping about listening to Portishead, banging on about Manchester United, trying to run a greasy spoon cafe and mooning after icy girlfriend Milly (Amita Dhiri). Bless.

Then, in dramedy Teachers (2001-03), he was kindly but slightly useless educationist Simon. The loveable roles continued on the big screen, particularly in Richard Curtis' Love Actually (2003), in which he played a Nice Guy secretly in love with his best mate's new wife (Keira Knightley). So far, so cuddly. The cosy roles even seemed to fit the London-born actor's real name: Andrew Clutterbuck.

All of which would no doubt be something of a shock to Lincoln's legions of American fans. To them, he's Sheriff Rick Grimes: gun-slinging leader of men. Buff protector of women and children. And, most notably, brutal slayer of reanimated, flesh-eating corpses - of humans, too, should they imperil his band of survivors or get in the way of his determination to get through the zombie apocalypse.

Lincoln has the lead role in The Walking Dead. Over five series, the American drama has grown from a vividly gory but deftly written, cult horror-fantasy show into a bona fide television phenomenon. It's based on Robert Kirkman's acclaimed comic book series, which is itself a brilliantly artful example of the form.

The show is still something of a fanboy concern in Britain, but in the US it's now the most-watched cable TV drama in ratings history. Among the hard-to-reach 18-to-49 demographic - the one to which advertisers are desperate to sell - the fourth and fifth seasons had the highest ratings of any show on television. About 22 million Americans watched the season five premiere. The Walking Dead is so successful a spin-off, near-prequel series, Fear the Walking Dead, launched to critical hosannas in August.

All of which explains the demeanour of Lincoln the last-but-one time we crossed paths. We were in the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, the state where The Walking Dead is shot. The Briton was moving swiftly through the terminal with a purposeful air: head down, collar up, cap on, suit bag draped over his back like a protective cloak. Is that how he has to move about in public these days?

"In America, yeah," the 42-year-old says with a slight heaviness. We're meeting this time in a hotel in central London. He, wife Gael and two young children still call Britain home for up to half of the year.

He can go about his business in rural Wiltshire largely untroubled. But in the US, where The Walking Dead films its 16 episodes between Easter and Thanksgiving, he's an action-hero superstar, with the mass fandom that comes with it.

"It's hard," he adds. "In America, it's a huge show. It's entered the [mainstream] language much more in the last two years. You can feel it."

For a self-proclaimed low-key Englishman, albeit one as jovial as Lincoln, is the attention hard to take? "Nah," he says cheerfully, smoothing the leg of the smart suit he's wearing. "No one comes up to me and says, 'I can't stand your show'. So anybody that takes umbrage at that enthusiasm, I mean, the only ... " he begins, then stops. It seems the occasions he's worried about the invasive nature of American celebrity are when he's with Matilda, 8, and Arthur, 5.

"But because we've been in Atlanta for five years, people are incredibly respectful. And also because I don't tend to do much press, and I'm very private, if people see me out eating with my family, they wait until the meal's finished before coming up. And they may not even ask for a picture."

In any case, having been a jobbing (if not quite slogging) actor until his mid-30s, Lincoln doesn't take any of this for granted.

"I had the good fortune of meeting Joan Rivers on David Letterman's chat show. She was on before me, and it was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. Joan Rivers is your warm-up act on Letterman - you'd better be funny!" he says in a polite English accent that is miles from the gruff, tough Southern tones of Rick Grimes. "And she said a lovely thing to me: 'It takes just as long and just as much energy to be nice as to be an idiot to somebody'. So it takes a lot of effort for somebody to come up and say, 'I love your show'. I think if you court press, then perhaps it opens up a different relationship. But with me, generally speaking, I'm quite quiet."

In terms of a disguise, "a hat seems to do it - for the time being!" he says, grinning. In any case, being low-key off set has to be Lincoln's default position.

If The Walking Dead can be gruelling to watch, it's considerably more gruelling to film. He spends every spring, summer and autumn running around the Deep South battling zombie hordes, adversarial humans, baking heat and ravenous woodland bugs alike. Little wonder that this year he used his sojourn in Britain to do little more than "just voice-overs and things, which has been nice".

Home-grown acting gigs have been forsworn in favour of establishing a production company with actor Stephen Mangan, a friend from their days at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and "a few other people. I don't really want to go into details 'cause there's that thing where actors of a certain age go, 'Oh, yeah, we've got a production company'," he says, adopting a fruitily pompous voice.

"But things are going really well," he adds, mentioning "four things that I'm developing, two that could be here and another two that are very much international projects."

Plus there's Away, a film shot in Blackpool this year, starring Timothy Spall and Juno Temple. "Wonderful pairing," he beams. "That's one of the most exciting things, to see that chemistry." But generally, the change of pace born of a few months taking it more easily in the old country helps his family cope with the biannual transatlantic commute.

"We love it over there. My wife is brilliant at it. I'm the kind of person who only reads the guidebook, but she actually takes notes and gets out and does it. So she's built a beautiful life for us. The kids go to school out there and we've made some very important relationships." He met Gael on the set of Teachers, on which she was a runner. She's the daughter of Jethro Tull frontman, Ian Anderson. Presumably having a rock-star dad had given her some sense of what it's like to have a peripatetic lifestyle?

"Yeah, I think I got lucky meeting Gael," Lincoln says. "She grew up with an incredibly internationally successful musician father who bounces around the world - and continues to do it. And also, she worked in the industry, so she knows the oddity and the hours and the behind-the-scenes of TV. Which is really helpful."

Insulating the kids from their dad's fame is more troublesome, but no less paramount to Lincoln - especially when Dad is famous as a blood-soaked tough nut, and features on Walking Dead merchandise aplenty. "It's funny, I had a chat with one of the parents at the school recently and they were talking about fundraising and getting me involved in that capacity. And I said, 'I'm more than happy to help out, but I really want to keep me out of their lives as much as we can'. Because school isn't about me, it's about them."

Having a zombie-free private life "is more fun for me as well. I mean, it is difficult when you walk through a shop and my son sees a board game and it's got my face on it," Lincoln chuckles, still tickled by the oddity of where his career has taken him. "But generally speaking, because it is an adult show, they're still thankfully away from it. We're reading Harry Potter at the moment, and that's scary enough."

Lowdown

Who: Andrew Lincoln
What: The Walking Dead, new season
When: Starts Monday, 9.40pm