TWD's Chad Coleman Found Tyreese's Hallucination Scene Inspiring
Chad Coleman's Tyreese Williams enjoyed a pretty decent run on "The Walking Dead" compared to many, becoming a regular from Season 3 to Season 5. In that time, he stood as a favorite among much of the show's audience, making the most of the zombie apocalypse and helping his fellow survivors along the way. Sadly, he meets a pretty brutal end when he's bitten by a walker, which leads to him losing copious amounts of blood before he inevitably dies. In his final moments, Tyreese hallucinates various people from his past and panics a bit about how his life has ended.
This is undoubtedly one of the saddest deaths on the show, but Coleman looks at it differently. During a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session, the "Walking Dead" alum shared that he finds Tyreese's hallucinations uplifting. "Each one of these actors are so honest, and real in their portrayal that it makes it easier for me to do my work, because they all bring their A-Game," he commented, referring to the scene as intense, exhausting, and inspiring. He then points out the hallucination with the Governor (David Morrissey) as one of his favorite Tyreese moments.
Still, just because the death of Tyreese was so well done and inspired Chad Coleman doesn't mean everyone on the "Walking Dead" set was happy about it.
Several of Coleman's colleagues hated to see him go
Many "Walking Dead" fans were understandably heartbroken over Tyreese's death, seeing as he was one of the few genuine, upstanding people on the show. His unwavering morality was a refreshing change of pace from the many morally gray characters the story put the spotlight on. As it turns out, several of the folks that worked alongside Chad Coleman on "The Walking Dead" in front of the camera were equally — if not more — upset that their colleague would bid the series farewell. Coleman himself shared as much in a 2015 interview with Variety.
"Danai [Gurira] is a tough cookie, but I think I saw a little tear in the corner of that eye. She was mad — she said, 'This is b*******.' All of them were. Andy [Lincoln] came and talked to me, probably one of the most gracious human beings I've ever known," Coleman recalled during the chat. He adds that after he finished filming his final scene as Tyreese, he received a call from Rick Grimes actor Andrew Lincoln, who offered him some incredibly high and well-deserved praise. Coleman said Lincoln told him something to the effect of "Chad, the work you did today is the reason I came to America. To work with actors like you."
He may not have made it to the end, but Tyreese is a "Walking Dead" icon, all the same. It's good to know that Chad Coleman got as much out of playing the character as fans did watching him do so.