Behind the Walkers: My Unexpected Descent Into The Walking Dead

In the winter of 2025, I made a decision that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time: I was going to become a zombie.

Not metaphorically. Not after a particularly bad week. Literally.

I was cast as a “walker” on AMC’s The Walking Dead: Dead City, and within a matter of days I went from Michael Kalish, relatively functioning human being, to something that looked like it had been dragged out of a New York City sewer after the apocalypse.

I had some acting experience under my belt, but nothing—and I mean nothing—could have prepared me for the bizarre road ahead.

It began on a freezing Tuesday morning in November. I arrived in Worcester, Massachusetts, along with dozens of other extras, for what can only be described as zombie school.

Yes. Zombie school.

Apparently, there is a proper way to be dead.

We were taught how to move, how to stand, how to stare, how to stumble and, most importantly, how to look like we had been dead for a very, very long time.
Meanwhile, regular people were walking down the street on their way to work, completely oblivious to the fact that an undead army was assembling a few yards away.

Then came the transformation.

The wardrobe department got to work on us, taking perfectly respectable human beings and turning us into walking biohazards. Clothes were ripped, distressed, dirtied and generally abused. Then came the makeup—layers of grime, decay, blood and whatever other horrifying substances are required to convince millions of television viewers that civilization has completely collapsed.

By the time they were finished with me, I looked less like an actor and more like a guy who had lost a fight with a dumpster.

And there I was.

Standing on a Worcester street.

In full zombie makeup.

Surrounded by dozens of other zombies.

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

Eventually, we were loaded up and transported to an abandoned, freezing-cold bank that had been transformed by the production team into a slice of post-apocalyptic New York City—the world of Season 3 of Dead City.

Inside, we were herded into a cramped, enclosed space constructed to resemble an underground train.

The temperature was brutal. The space was tight. And then the machinery of television began to come alive around us.

Lights.

Cameras.

Crew members shouting instructions.

Makeup artists making last-second adjustments.

Actors moving through the space.

And dozens of us—dead-eyed, filthy, disgusting walkers—waiting for our moment.

Then something strange happened.

The room changed.

The cameras rolled.

And suddenly, standing there in the darkness, I wasn’t myself anymore.

I was a walker.

For a few surreal moments, I had actually crossed over into the world I had watched on television for years.

Thank you to Kendall Cooper Casting, Jeffrey Dead Morgan, Lauren Cohan, and the cast and crew of The Walking Dead: Dead City.

Fingers crossed for another season…