The Walking Dead: 10 Worst Casting Mistakes

We’ve already gone over how distractingly a bad extra can be, and that’s even more the case with a bad actor in a redshirt role. Sure, they’re only distinguishable from extras in that they get a line or two before inevitably being killed off but in the casting hierarchy they’re still more noticeable and therefore required to give a halfway convincing performance.

Season 3’s Shumpert, aka the Bowman for his archery skills, played by Travis Love, is a perfect example. In case you need a refresher – and you’d be forgiven considering how little he did – Shumpert was one of the Governor’s henchmen alongside Martinez, and suffered a rather unceremonious offscreen death in Season 4.

All the actor really did was stand around looking tough, menacing and weary. Which is kind of understandable considering he was under the thumb of the increasingly crazy Governor but he could’ve given the role a better go with a more, shall we say, nuanced range of facial expressions.

Even when he did get a bit of dialogue – the highlight of which was “Martinez, we got biters!” – it wasn’t all that great. Convincing enough yeah, but hardly an Emmy award winning performance.

Fun fact: Travis Love also played a Vatos Gang extra (the seemingly scary but actually lovely group looking after abandoned nursing home residents) in Season 1 – a role in which he also stood around looking tough and not saying much.