For Andrew Lincoln, 'Walking Dead' never felt so alive

LOS ANGELES — After surviving cannibals at Terminus and seeing the sweet and surprisingly strong Beth killed, The Walking Dead's Rick Grimes could understandably despair.

But he doesn't, says Andrew Lincoln, who plays the Georgia lawman in the hit AMC drama, returning Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT) for the second half of a harrowing Season 5.

"I think he always has hope. If he didn't have hope, he would fall down," Lincoln says. "He's just a fierce pragmatist. He's one of these people who goes, 'The hope I have is that we have 'now.' 'We're living right now. And we build from here.'"

Life in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with zombies will get even worse for Rick and company, who open the season's final eight episodes without a home. "We're moving into the darkest, lowest ebb we've ever attempted in the show," he says.

The British-born actor, 41, who has trimmed Rick's bushy beard to a stylish stubble, then flashes a bright smile, the likes of which we rarely see from his character. "And then the show completely reinvents itself," he teases, mum about details.

Executive producer Scott M. Gimple says Lincoln conveys a comforting familiarity, even if you don't know him.

"That's a huge thing, especially in television," where viewers have an ongoing relationship with characters, he says. "The journey has been complex and dark. He's flirted with being an antihero (but) always stayed on the hero side. However dark Andy has gone — and that we've gone with Rick — you could not extinguish the humanity he brings to the character."

Still, Rick sometimes leans toward brutal (if justified) mayhem, whether it's aimed at Terminus cannibals or Beth's captors, but his comrades can change his mind.

"Rick's been talking about slitting everybody's throats, (but) he's still anchored by pivotal relationships," he says. "There are still people who are anchoring Rick."

Lincoln, who played the best man pining for Keira Knightley's Juliet in Love, Actually, recently formed a production company with Stephen Mangan (Episodes), a friend from his days at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

He's far from ready to leave Dead:. "I'm having more fun now, and for the last five years, than I've ever had in my career." But he says the show could go on without Rick.

Growing ratings, rare in a show's fifth season, make it unlikely Dead will end anytime soon. A spinoff also is in the works. If and when Rick departs, Lincoln wants the loss to matter enough so that fans feel it. "I hope that when my character dies, people pull their TV sets out of the wall and throw them out of the window."