Any plans to direct away from The Walking Dead?
I do have to say that currently The Walking Dead is a full time job. I'd love to do more, Robert Rodriguez has offered me other things to go shoot, but by the time I start on The Walking dead in April and wrap at Christmas time I haven't really been able to figure out how to squeeze another movie into a four month period.
Now Fear The Walking Dead will be shooting during our hiatus it's going to be 365-days a year zombies for me. Which I'm not complaining about at all.
How do you feel about the recent trend of horror making its way to TV?
I love that people have embraced horror on TV. It has always been the one genre that's been challenging to pull off.
Science fiction has always been very popular on TV starting with Star Trek to the Twilight Zone, to the X Files.
They're all fantastic shows but horror has been a lot trickier. I think one of the big reasons that The Walking Dead was successful was because it really took its roots from Night of the Living Dead.
I think with American Horror Story and Bates Motel on, there's some genuinely scary stuff on TV. The filmmakers that have been putting the material forward have been pushing the envelope.
I love the idea that American Horror Story has a different tone and story every season. It's not just going back to the same well each week, it's really bold, ground-breaking and original. I love that, it just gives you a little more bang for your buck.
With The Walking Dead we've been able to raise the bar in terms of what we could do on TV.
I remember when Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead came out – those movies were unrated. You couldn't even go to the movie theatre to see those films unless you were over 18. And now we're able to put like material on cable and stuff we couldn't do literally 10-15 years ago in the theatres, without getting an unrated film, we're now able to do on television.
What can you tease from the rest of Fear The Walking Dead?
I think the most exciting thing about Fear is the story we've been able to craft over the first six episodes and the level of suspense. I love the idea of being able to learn about our society through the character's eyes. The big challenge is the viewers already know what's going on.
It's much more of a Hitchcockian suspense in terms of that bit where you're waiting for the characters to catch on and you're screaming at them going "don't go in that door" or "don't go to that person". It's a different dynamic.
What can you share about season six of The Walking Dead?
Every season I always feel like I'm talking about how the fact it's us doing more than we ever have before – we're doing bigger, our stories continue to get more ambitious and our cast grows.
We have 18 characters somewhere in there and we have a responsibility and an obligation to their characters and their storylines. It's a very complex season so far.
The season premiere has got to take the ship out of the hangar and set our story on the water. It's a fantastic episode that Scott Gimple wrote and I directed; it really does launch our characters story which will lead us through the entire first half of the season.
It lays all the groundwork in the first episode.
Fear The Walking Dead premiers in the UK tonight at 9pm on the AMC from BT channel in HD or for those on Freeview it'll also be on BT showcase. In the US the series continues Sunday nights at 9PM.
The Walking Dead returns October 11 in the US and October 12 in the UK with a special 90-minute premiere episode.
