Q: It's been a nearly a year since you were on the show. Did you have to do anything to shake the rust off Merle?
A: I had already developed the character in Season 1, so that part was no effort at all. I wanted to lose a little weight, you know, so I concentrated on that kind of thing. Eventually I had dropped maybe 30 pounds. It was good preparation. A friend of mine timed the amount of screen time that I had before this season: It ended up being only about seven and a half minutes! So those minutes solidified that character in every fan's mind. It's pretty damn cool to think that something that just came from the page, this character, Merle, now has a life of its own.
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