Zombies take to the roof, fans wait below as 'Walking Dead" filming begins downtown

WORCESTER — Negan a no-show for the first day of filming “The Walking Dead: Dead City” in downtown Worcester on Wednesday? At least in the early hours of the shoot.

Maybe Negan (portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his barbed-wire-covered Louisville Slugger “Lucille” were enjoying batting practice at Polar Park instead.

Either way, Maggie Green Rhee and Perlie Armstrong (Lauren Cohan and Gaius Charles, respectively) were dropped off shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday to shoot scenes on the rooftop of 8 Norwich St.

As they were waiting to hear “And action," Cohan, who plays the leader of the zombie apocalypse settlement the Hilltop, would occasionally pop her head up from the rooftop, which whipped the small contingent of dedicated “Walking Dead” fans on the city street below into a paparazzi tizzy.

At one point, Cohan waved at a fan three stories below.

Friends Danielle Dragon from Somerset and Katie Randall from Cumberland, Rhode Island, came to Worcester at the break of dawn to see Wednesday’s filming.

While both are fans of Cohan’s character, who was introduced in Season Two of “The Walking Dead” in 2011, Dragon and Randall made no secret that they came in special with hopes of capturing a glimpse of Morgan.

“I want to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan and I would love to get a picture with him,” Dragon said.

“The same,” Randall added. “I have actually been a fan of Jeffrey Dean Morgan ever since he played Denny Duquette in 'Grey’s Anatomy' (where he was introduced in Season Two back in 2006). He was one of my favorite characters then.”

Without spoiling the outcome of “The Walking Dead: Dead City,” according to Dragon and Randall, the last time we saw Negan and Maggie, the two were on “shaky ground,” to put it mildly.

Worcester is not Randall and Dragon’s first zombie rodeo. A few weeks earlier, they ventured to Taunton for the filming of “The Walking Dead: Dead City.”

“We saw zombies,” Dragon said, showing pictures of walkers in various stages of decay, some of which were smoking or vaping in-between shoots. “And we saw extras that were community members.”

While shooting for day one in Worcester focused on action on the roof of 8 Norwich St., the scuttlebutt on the street was filming for day two was going to hit the blacktop, with heavy hordes of zombies possibly in the forecast.

One added plus: The Croat’s war-friendly Cadillac made a cameo as it drove down Federal Street and took a right onto Norwich Street, where it remained parked for most of the day, a stone's throw away from the Midtown Mall entrance.

The pimped-out cruiser was adorned with sharped objects, with some of the points protected with green tennis balls.

With The Croat’s Caddy on the city streets, can Zeliko Ivanek, the actor who plays the super-baddie, be far behind?

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: 'The Walking Dead: Dead City' filming begins in downtown Worcester