Steven Yeun Didn’t Want To Be ‘Weird’ About ‘The Walking Dead’ Reference In His New A24 Movie

The trailer for the new A24 movie The Humans begins with a conversation about zombies. “I keep seeing these ads for that zombie show on TV. It’s awful,” one character says. Another adds, “I can’t believe people want to watch that kind of stuff at night. There’s enough going on in the real world to give me creeps.” This discussion is notable because one of the stars of The Humans is Steven Yeun, who appeared on a little-known zombie show called The Walking Dead.

The Oscar-nominated actor was asked by Decider whether writer and director Stephen Karam put it in the script for him, or if it was a coincidence. “I mean, he’s clearly referencing The Walking Dead. But I remember when we were in rehearsals I was like, ‘Uh, guys, I don’t want to be weird about this…’ — because also I’m coming from a place where I don’t want to presume that people would care or know or even think about it,” Yeun said. He was unsure about bringing it up in front of co-stars Richard Jenkins, June Squibb, Amy Schumer, and Beanie Feldstein, but eventually, he “casually lifted my hand up” and said, “Um, I was on this show. You know that… right” They knew.

“And they were like ‘Ohhh, yeah!’ There was never any crossover to that. No one ever really knew what was going on. So I largely just was like, alright let’s see what happens! Of course, then they put it in the trailer. That was conscious, I know that much. I didn’t know that was gonna happen. I watched the trailer at the same time as you, so I was just like, ‘Oh. They put that in there.’ [laughs]”

You can watch the trailer for The Humans (which is on VOD now) below: