Based on Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard’s comic book series of the same name The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic horror drama series. The show stars Andrew Lincoln as the lead along with the cast including Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs, Melissa McBride, and more. The series ran from 2010 to 2022 for eleven seasons with 177 episodes.
The third season of the television series was the season that had garnered the most attention and the series received positive response from the critics and the audience. AMC’s post-apocalyptic horror drama has been compared to HBO’s The Last of Us starring Pedro Pascal and now some eagle-eyed fans have pointed out the difference in Lincoln and Pascal’s pay per episode for their respective shows.
Warning: Spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes is worth more than Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller
Andrew Lincoln played former sheriff Rick Grimes on AMC’s The Walking Dead who is also the leader of the group of survivors of zombie apocalypse. With his exceptional performance, he managed to establish himself as one of the highest-earning cast members.
According to the reports by The Things, Lincoln earned an estimated $650,000 per episode, although it can be noted that the pay would have been comparatively less in the initial days of the show, as it was relatively new. And talking about the other leader of the post-apocalyptic show, Joel Miller from The Last of Us played by Pedro Pascal who has grown to be one of the fan-favorite characters in recent times is also paid a significant amount.
According to reports by Variety, Pedro Pascal was paid $600K per episode for a ten-episode series. Despite Pascal’s salary for The Last of Us being dwarfed by Andrew Lincoln’s The Walking Dead’s salary, it is still considered above average.
The two actors with their performances as Rick Grimes and Joel Miller have managed to impress the audience and critics. Pascal will be returning for season two of The Last of Us where as Lincoln returned as Rick Grimes for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live opposite Danai Gurira. Lincoln’s pay for the spin-off show hasn’t been revealed but it is believed that it could be more than his previous pay.
Andrew Lincoln on pushing the ‘never quit’ attitude of Rick Grimes for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiered on 25th February 2024 which saw Andrew Lincoln return as Rick Grimes back on-screen but of course with a surprise element. The soldier who tethered Grimes by his wrist to hold him back from escaping did not see what was about to come for him. Rick Grimes chopping off his wrist to get free.
Without giving too many spoilers about how and what happened, showrunner Scott M. Gimple shared with EW,
“I played around with the idea but didn’t commit to it through all sorts of iterations of the story. But it was Andy that pushed it. Andy was the ones to bring it across the goal line.”
The actor admitted that he had just bullied everybody into submission with the idea of the character chopping off his wrist to free himself. He added,
“There were quite a lot of conversations, particularly with AMC, with people goig, ‘Now Andy, we love the idea, but are you really sure about this?’ But I just thought: This is time to do what the comic book did and honor that. I’ve been trying to pitch this for years, and everybody was just shouting me down.”
Andrew Lincoln explained that the audience is aware of the character never giving up attitude and they had to explain Rick Grimes’ absence. He added that this act would serve as the most extraordinary effort that he’d do to get back to his beloved. The showrunner and the actor believe that the tone for the show has been set and the following episodes will unfold the fact that he still hasn’t escaped.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres on AMC and AMC+ at 9 PM ET.
Eleven seasons of The Walking Dead are streaming on Netflix whereas season one of The Last of Us is streaming on HBO.
