“It changes your body.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First off, I hear you’re quite the musician.
MICHAEL JAMES SHAW:Right now, I’m focused on writing.
Michael James Shaw on ‘The Walking Dead’.Josh Stringer/AMC
I started in the fall taking production classes, so I’ve been adding Logic to my arsenal.
In my downtime, up here in Georgia, I’ve been writing an album of sorts.
It’s just all the things that inspire me, all infiltrated into my sound.
So tell me about the audition process that went into landing this role.
I got the e-mail from my agents on the Friday of Thanksgiving 2020.
A friend came over on Sunday to help stage it.
And that was that, man.
This is at the top of the Runyon hike.
So, I hiked down through it, and me and Sharon chatted for a bit.
Then after that, they told me that [showrunner] Angela King wanted to talk to me.
So, a few days later I talked to Angela.
We had a Skype call one morning.
It was good vibes all the way through.
How familiar were you with the show and the comic book?
I had a couple of friends who have passed through theWalking Deadfamily Chad Coleman and Corey Hawkins.
Chad and I shotRootsfor History Channel together in New Orleans.
When he was on the show, I was watching heavily.
I watched up to season 5, and then I kind of trailed off.
When I auditioned, I didn’t know what the character’s name was.
I just knew what he was going through in those scenes; I didn’t know it was Mercer.
So once you get the job, I assume they told you who you were playing.
Were you then tearing through the comic books to see what this guy was about?
And what did you take from reading those comics?
He was like, “Before this happened, I was bored.”
It gave him a purpose again.
That was a moment where, I don’t know, I just saw him.
What was your first day on set like, beyond having to observe all the COVID protocols?
What was that experience like for you?
Funny story: When I was getting ready to move out, some craziness happened.
I was flying out two days later to come to Atlanta, and packed up my entire apartment.
I was planning on sleeping on an air mattress for like a day or two.
It was a nice moment though nice to recalibrate as I started this new journey.
It was a mild case of COVID, thank God.
I bought a couple of kettlebells and some dip bars, and carved out some workouts for myself.
It was a bootcamp for my physical and mental right before I came here.
So it led to a really good first week on set.
It’s rare that you step onto a set and everyone has a positive outlook.
There’s just a lot of love and respect for the craft from top to bottom.
What was it like getting to put the red armor on?
I had a fitting in L.A. “[Laughs]But no, dude, it was kind of surreal.
It changes your body.
It changes your posture.
I’ve grown to love the suit.
There’s actually two versions of it.
It doesn’t feel as tough.
Mr. Sherbet, he’s become a dear friend of mine.
That’s what I call the suit: Mr. Sherbet.
