The Walking Dead: What Happened To Tyler James Williams' Noah?
During Season 5 of the AMC hit "The Walking Dead," viewers are introduced to Noah (Tyler James Williams). After departing Grady Memorial Hospital, he strikes up a friendship with Beth Greene (Emily Kinney) and becomes a core member of Rick Grimes' (Andrew Lincoln) crew of survivors. He accompanies them on their trip to the Alexandria Safe-Zone and successfully assimilates into the community. However, while that may sound like his "Walking Dead" tenure is a happy one, he sadly meets a brutal end within the same season that hosts his series debut.
In Season 5's "Spend," Noah joins a crew led by Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) to head off on a supply run per usual — one that turned out to be Noah's last. He, Glenn, and Nicholas (Michael Traynor) end up stuck in a building with a horde of walkers creeping closer and closer toward them. Their only method of escape is a revolving door, which is surrounded on both sides by walkers. Though Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) manages to distract the walkers on the outside, in their frantic escape, Noah ends up trapped inside and is torn apart by the crowd of flesh-hungry undead in one of the show's saddest deaths.
That's a hard and not at all uncommon way to go out on "The Walking Dead," and it certainly wasn't easy for Williams to film.
Noah's death generated mixed emotions in Williams
After Noah's sad end on "The Walking Dead," Tyler James Williams spoke to Collider about filming his last scene among the living. Overall, it was an experience full of mixed feelings due to the practical and emotional impacts of it all.
"Getting eaten by a zombie technically? Very difficult. Very, very difficult," he explained to the publication, recalling numerous squibs having to pop at just the right times and the struggle of reacting to pretend zombie bites. Not only is this difficult to make look natural, but on the whole, Williams wasn't feeling much emotion throughout the scene anyway. That is until he got a look at the screaming bust of himself needed for the moment, which was so uncomfortably lifelike that it made him struggle a bit.
Additionally, Williams explained that there was something of a mourning process upon filming Noah's demise. He'd never had one of his on-screen counterparts die off, so it was a lot for him to process. He said, "It was a mourning process that came immediately after we [called cut]. Because there's only one take at that. You only get one." At the same time, Williams considers his very first on-screen death to be special, especially taking into account the bonding experience it was with the other cast and crew members involved.
Many characters came and went throughout the 11 seasons of "The Walking Dead," and thanks to his life and death, Noah stands among some of the most memorable of them all.