Tonight, the first of the final eight episodes of The Walking Dead premieres on AMC. SciFi Vision recently spoke to members of the cast during a roundtable interview about what their characters taught them.

For Josh McDermitt, who plays Eugene, it was his selflessness. “I think Eugene has taught me to be less selfish,” the actor told SciFi Vision, “just in my own life. Not that I've [ever] felt like I was a very selfish person, but just to see how Eugene really puts others before him. I was like, ‘Yeah, that's kind of how we should all be living.’”

“I'm strong enough to do a lot more than I give myself credit for,” said Margot Bingham, who plays Eugene’s girlfriend, Max.

Paola Lazaro, who plays Princess, learned some valuable skills from her character. “For me,” said the actress, “I think this character taught me to be at peace with myself and to kind of love myself, but also to use the pain of the past to move you forward and for survival. Use those skills that you learned in the past, dealing with trauma and stuff like that to move you forward in this world as a shield.”

Nadia Hilker, who plays Magna, added that through the series she’s learned that “ASL is the most beautiful language in the world.”

During the interview the topic of Eugene and Max’s relationship came up, and McDermitt spoke to how his character has really changed because of it. “It's an interesting thing to play,” said the actor. “I mean, his pragmatism, was really in the forefront. It was in the front of his brain, and now he's got these blinders on. I think it's really what made him fall for the decoy Stephanie. He wanted that to happen and to be real. So, that allowed him to kind of overlook some of the other things that if he had just remained pragmatic, he might have caught.”

“Now that he's with Max,” he continued, “she's, in a sense, bringing him back down to earth, to where he can actually just see everything for what it is…So, it's an interesting turn for the character, to have him find love, and to have that love kind of blind him, in a sense, and now having to be brought back to Earth.”

Other things discussed during the roundtable was how hope continues to play a role this season for the characters, characters’ backstories they’d like to see explored, and more. Read the full transcript below and watch the new episode tonight on AMC, or stream it now on AMC+

***Edited for length and clarity***

QUESTION:   It seems like the last two seasons love has kind of changed [Eugene]…because he just goes along with whatever his romantic interest says. I was wondering, as somebody who used to create all these gadgets, as Dr. Smarty Pants and all that, how the character has changed so much to [now be] always following rather than being followed romantically.

JOSH McDERMITT:   It's an interesting thing to play. I mean, his pragmatism, was really in the forefront. It was in the front of his brain, and now he's got these blinders on. I think it's really what made him fall for the decoy Stephanie. He wanted that to happen and to be real. So, that allowed him to kind of overlook some of the other things that if he had just remained pragmatic, he might have caught. It's interesting; now that he's with Max, she's, in a sense, bringing him back down to earth, to where he can actually just see everything for what it is. I think that's kind of where we find these characters. They're confronted with a lot of lot of things that are going on in the Commonwealth, and they're just asking themselves, “What are we going to do about this?” It's hard to say. I don't know if Eugene without Max would be there right now, just because he might have just gone back to baring his head and just becoming who he used to be years ago. So, it's an interesting turn for the character, to have him find love, and to have that love kind of blind him, in a sense, and now having to be brought back to Earth.

QUESTION:   For some of you, you've been with the show for a long time, and some of you are relatively new to the show. Once upon a time as fans we used to wonder what was it like [and who were] these characters before they arrived on the actual show. Now we have this great vehicle, that the universe has expanded. We have this great vehicle with Tales of The Walking Dead to go back and tell stories that may have taken place at any point in the characters’ past. I'm wondering, have you considered what a story on the show like Tales of The Walking Dead would be like, and would you be interested in going back and kind of revisiting a moment from your character's past?

NADIA HILKER:   …If there's one wish that could come true it’s that I would have loved to see her backstory, where she came from, her and Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), one hundred percent.

MARGOT BINGHAM:   I think too, one of the coolest things about the show, I have always loved the episodes where it's really focused on the character. There's nothing more that I love in a TV program [than] to show a character and where they originated from and where they came from. It just connects you so much more. So, yeah, I think that that would be awesome for every one of us to be able to see our origin story and see how we came to this point, see all the people that we lost. It only connects fans more, and I think that that's just one of the coolest journeys to see on a TV show.

PAOLA LAZARO:   I agree with everything that Margot and Nadia said. I think it would be really exciting to see where all these people came from and what their lives were. I think it'd be awesome just to see everything before the [apocalypse] [audio cuts out] like working at Starbucks or something.

…

JOSH McDERMITT:   I think it would be awesome if we did a sitcom style episode, a multicam, like Max and Eugene, where it's like the show Roseanne or something where they're just living in this house and sitting around at the kitchen table like they've been married for thirty-five years. [laughs]

MARGOT BINGHAM:   Hornsby comes in, and the whole crowd is like, “Wah, wah, wah.”

JOSH McDERMITT:   Yeah, they kiss, and everyone is like, “Ooh…”

PAOLA LAZARO:   I come and visit and the crowd goes, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

JOSH McDERMITT:   Yeah, you're like Kramer on Seinfeld. You just get instant laughs from walking through the door. This is why they don't include us in any of the pitch meetings.

MARGOT BINGHAM:   This is also why we don't do roundtables often.

JOSH McDERMITT:   They try and limit that.

QUESTION:   At the start of this last stretch of episodes, all of your characters are inside the Commonwealth, and it seems like they all have this kind of hope that they can make a change from inside. So, after everything everyone's been through, how much does hope play into the journey of your characters in this last stretch?

MARGOT BINGHAM:   Well, it's everything that we have. The thing that we can hold on to is hope; we've lost so many. There's nothing known around the corner; everything is a gamble, and hope is literally all that we have. We have each other, but we don't know for how long. So, that's all that we got.

JOSH McDERMITT:   It's really what's driving all of this. They could just ignore everything that's happening within the walls and kind of just keep moving forward as usual, but eventually all that is going to fall apart. The corruption is going to get so bad that more and more people die who shouldn't die. So, the hope for a better place, the hope for what we know this place could be, is really at the crux of this. That's the only way the community is going to survive, and they know it, and that's really why they've put their lives on the line. The stakes are higher than ever right now, and that hope is right there.

QUESTION:   I'm not expecting you to give away your characters fates, but generally speaking, was the cast less anxious going into season eleven about their characters possibly dying? Did they want to go out in a blaze of glory?…I mean, because you had gotten so far and accomplished so much. Did you want to see your character go out in a blaze of glory, or were you just so attached to them?

NADIA HILKER:   I kind of did because I always wanted to be a zombie. I would have loved to just have gotten the makeup and [gotten to] do the growl. But in the last episode, if I could have made a wish in the very last episode, while after making love to Yumiko, turn me into a zombie, yes.

PAOLA LAZARO:   …No, I was not less anxious. I was equally anxious. I was probably more anxious, because it was twenty-four episodes. So, there were twenty-four chances for you to die. So, no, I was definitely anxious about that, but it's part of this job…But in the end, I was super anxious. There were twenty-four chances. That's what I'm going to say.

JOSH McDERMITT:   The only thing I cared about was, I’m going to - we're all going to fight for our characters and kind of shape where we feel like they should go, and what direction…I definitely had strong feelings about how long Eugene survives, which I'll withhold, but whether or not he's ever going to get killed off, the only thing I ever cared about was being a part of those conversations. Because sometimes, with these with the writers, they're living with these decisions for months before it's ever even brought to you, and they've made decisions based on decisions based on conversations and more decisions. So, by the time it's brought to you, you may not have as much of a voice as you thought you did. So, for me, I would just hope that no matter what, I was brought in from the get-go to kind of help shape where I felt like the character should and could end up, but I guess we'll see. I mean, to kind of steal Paola’s line, we have eight more chances to see if Eugene makes it or not.

SCIFI VISION:   What has each of your characters taught you about yourselves?

MARGOT BINGHAM:   Good question. That I can survive next to Josh [unintelligible]. [laughs]

JOSH McDERMITT:   Big one.

MARGOT BINGHAM:   It was a strong lesson. That I'm strong enough to do a lot more than I give myself credit for.

NADIA HILKER:   That ASL is the most beautiful language in the world. Is that a right answer for the question?

SCIFI VISION:   Yeah.

NADIA HILKER:   Okay.

JOSH McDERMITT:   I was going to say, I think Eugene has taught me to be less selfish, just in my own life. Not that I've [ever] felt like I was a very selfish person, but just to see how Eugene really puts others before him. I was like, “Yeah, that's kind of how we should all be living.”

PAOLA LAZARO:   For me, I think this character taught me to be at peace with myself and to kind of love myself, but also to use the pain of the past to move you forward and for survival. Use those skills that you learned in the past, dealing with trauma and stuff like that to move you forward in this world as a shield.

QUESTION:   I want to talk to Nadia about the scene in the first half where she's a waitress, basically working at Governor Milton's ball, and you really see the division between the classes, in particular with Eleanor's character, and I almost got kind of vibes of The Purge this season a little bit. I was wondering what you all thought of the whole class influence, the whole modern kind of take, especially with the protest signs in the first new episode and all that.

NADIA HILKER:   Oh, I hated it. I hated it. Then, I don't know, when I read the script, I was convinced that she would find a way to get out of there and convince everyone around her, but then, because of the differences in the classes and how they treated people, and then helping others, and she felt responsible and wanted to help and make a change, but that's pretty much the world we're living in on this planet in this world as well. To her or to me it feels like out there it was better than being in there. You're a prisoner. Then, her being a [waitress] again, and then also, serving her girlfriend, she's been having issues with that. She felt like Yumiko looked down to her for her being a waitress and her, an attorney. Yeah, a lot of mixed feelings. A lot of mixed feelings.