Andrew West, who plays Gareth in "The Walking Dead," talked about his brutal death on the show, cannibalism, tainted meat and his last scene on set during an interview Sunday, the Entertainment Weekly reported.
Rick Grimes, played by Andrew Lincoln, told Gareth back in the season 5 premiere of the "The Walking Dead" that he would one day kill him with a machete. Grimes finally followed through with his warning on "Four Walls and a Roof," the third episode of the fifth season of the show.
In the previous episode, Gareth had kidnapped zombie apocalypse survivor Bob, played by Lawrence Gilliard. He and his fellow hunters cut off Bob's leg and proceeded to eat it. However, it was revealed on latest episode that Bob had been bitten by a walker hours prior.
"I've been bitten you stupid pricks," Bob said. "I'm tainted meat."
Gareth returned Bob sans leg to Grimes and the other survivors. After a lot of planning by Grimes and his group, they eventually trapped Gareth and company in the church, and a confrontation ensued, which ended with Grimes killing Gareth with a machete as he had once promised.
Bob said his goodbyes to Grimes and the group before eventually passing on.
West, who played Gareth, told Entertainment Weekly that "The Walking Dead" showrunner Scott Gimple initially told him that there would be elements of cannibalism to the Terminus characters, but he was made unaware as to how much the show would be borrowing from the original comic book series.
After finding out how his character's fate played out in the show, from his eventual cannibalism and consumption of tainted meat, he said he was excited to go in and start shooting that scene because "it was so good and so intense."
"It was too good to be true," West said. "I was like, I don't just get the one amazing scene from the comics, but that whole sequence! And yeah, I felt pretty lucky."
West called Gareth's death "intense and brutal," during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"It was brutal and bloody," West said, adding that the special effects team needed to get action shots of Lincoln hitting him, so West was wrapped in rubber and padding and had to let Lincoln hit him repeatedly with a rubber machete.
"It doesn't hurt at all," he said. "But you feel that pressure and you feel how intensely he's swinging. It creates a pretty remarkable atmosphere. It's scary."
West also said that while he enjoyed playing Gareth, he thought he "needed to go."
"As much as I would have liked to see this guy last forever, in this world, he's got to go," West said. "It is going to be interesting to see what kind of effect Gareth and the Terminus people have on the psyche of our heroes moving forward."
West is set to appear on the movie "Walter," starring alongside William Macy, Justin Kirk, Virginia Madsen and Jim Gaffagan. The film hits the big screen next month.
"The Walking Dead" airs 9 p.m. EDT Sundays on AMCTV.