MOVIE NEWS – Emily Kinney has spoken openly about her character’s fate on The Walking Dead and revealed what made her decide to write Beth out of the show in season 5.

Longtime fans of The Walking Dead will remember Emily Kinney as Beth Greene, the younger sister of Lauren Cohan’s Maggie and daughter of Scott Wilson’s Hershel. Beth originally made her debut in season 2 and successfully survived a few seasons before her career ended abruptly in the mid-season finale of season 5. This followed a multi-episode storyline in which Beth was held captive in a hospital by former police officers.

According to ComicBook.com, Emily Kinney was speaking at Fandemic’s “Fallen Heroes” panel about the final season of the series.

She revealed that then-showrunner Scott Gimple asked her to shave part of her head to return for season 5 after she disappeared in the previous season.

Kinney didn’t know at the time that his character would die in that season, but since he was aware that it was a real possibility, he thought it better to decline the request to get under the zero machine:

“Scott Gimple talked to me one day about – I don’t know if you guys remember, but [Beth] had a big scar, when I show up in the hospital, something bad happened to [Beth] and I had a big scar. He had this idea of the scar being on my head and my head being shaved, all messed up – not completely shaved, but all messed up. I said, ‘Okay, sure, as the dedicated actress, I would love that. However, if you’re thinking we might kill her off soon, please, no, because I would like to get another acting job after this’ [laughs].”

Emily Kinney says she’s made it clear that she’s completely willing to shave her head, or parts of it if necessary, but only if they assure her that her character will stay on stage long enough for that hair to grow back.

The actress probably knew it was a bad sign when the shaving aspect was not included in the final script, although she remained hopeful for Beth’s survival.

“Then it wasn’t in the script that I shaved my head. So then I was like, okay, I didn’t necessarily think I was going to die… But I’m glad that we didn’t shave my head.”

Following Beth’s death, Emily Kinney reprised the role when Tyreese (Chad Coleman) was killed in the next episode, premiering in the mid-season premiere of Season 5. As Tyreese succumbed to a walker’s bite, she imagined Beth in the car with him, telling him it was okay to let her go. Years later, Kinney appeared once more in the final episode of the series with Rick (Andrew Lincoln). While Rick was in a clean state, Beth spoke to him and appeared alongside other bodies of people from Rick’s past.

Source: Comicbook.com