Living in Atlanta and slaughtering zombies has become a new way of life for The Walking Dead’s leading man Andrew Lincoln. He chats to the Metro about his “mad life”:

How does it feel to be back home after six months filming in Georgia?

It’s great to be home and to catch up with family and mates. But we got back at the end of November and I immediately contracted some sort of horrible consumption-like illness. I thought it was a zombie virus but it turned out to be a Dickensian  disease that lasted all of Christmas and January. 

You must need a rest after fending off all those zombies again. Are you getting the chance to put your feet up? 

We have just moved house to a place in the countryside, so I am pretty busy planting trees and trying to keep chickens and ducks alive. It’s not going very well so far. 

Was it a culture shock to film in the Deep South and get the accent right?

I have this mad sort of life now where I get on a plane, then I get off at the other end and I’m given a new phone – it’s called a cell phone – and I speak in a different dialect, and they give me  different currency, and I shoot zombies for a living. 

Did you take your wife and your two young children out to Georgia with you? 

Yes. I really wouldn’t be able to do it without them being there with me. When we are there, we live in Atlanta, which is a really amazing city, and we have made some incredibly good friends there. I think that is one of the big advantages of being an actor – getting the chance to go to places you would never have gone to otherwise. 

Have your children developed southern accents yet? 

Yes, they have a bit but we try to slap it out of them. I’m kidding, we don’t. We thought our son’s first words were going to be in American but he’s very slow and lazy and hasn’t started talking yet. My daughter started saying ‘water’ and ‘daughter’ and ‘brother’ with an American accent; her Rs became really American. But since we’ve come back, she’s started at a new school that’s a bit like Hogwarts, and they all keep asking her why she’s talking so strangely. 

I understand there were other challenges involved in filming down there, such as the wildlife?

Yes, Steve Yeun, who plays Glenn, got a tick on his dick and Jon Bernthal, who plays Shane, got eaten alive by chiggers [mites]. Seriously, he was eaten alive. Forget zombies. These evil, weevily things burrow into your skin and then eat you from the inside. No horror movie has ever created anything as evil as that. I don’t think they like British blood, though – I didn’t get bitten once. I think I must carry such terrible diseases that the American  insects don’t want to eat me. 

The Brits seem to be taking over US television; you’re in The Walking Dead, and now your This Life co-star Jack Davenport is in Smash. Do you compare notes? 

Jack is a great friend of mine and has been an enormous help and support. There’s also Stephen Mangan, one of my closest and dearest friends, who is doing Episodes, and Shaun Parkes, who is in The River. It’s amazing that these are all really close friends of mine who all doing really well over there. We have this batphone going  between us Brits in America. We all call each other up, asking: ‘Did they say that to you? Is this normal? Is this what they do?’ And one of us will say: ‘Yes, it’s normal. You have to work 20 hours a day. That’s what they do here.’ 

What sort of reception have you received in the US?

We have all been very fortunate that America has been so welcoming to us. I’m not sure we are the same in return in this country. Someone said a really wise thing to me about the cultural difference: in America, you start off in credit; in  England, you start off in debit, and that is just so true. 

For Halloween, did you raid the wardrobe department and dress up as one of the zombies? 

I was gutted about Halloween because we were filming late. But you can now buy these really dodgy Rick Grimes all-in-one outfits in the shops, with a tiny little sheriff’s hat and a plastic gun. My wife, Gael, was insistent that I should put one on and go up and down our street in it. Next year, I’m going to make the whole cast wear them and we can all go trick-or-treating together. 

What do you miss the most about England when you are away?

My cat and my surfboard. There aren’t very many waves in Atlanta.

Read the full interview in today’s Metro or online.