'The Walking Dead' cast tease the smarter zombies you'll see on the show's final episodes: 'You got walkers that are running and doing backflips'

"I think it makes everything more exciting," Hilker, who has played Magna since season nine, told Insider of her reaction to these variant walkers.

"I don't wanna spoil anything, so it's hard to dive in deeper, but we all evolve, so why shouldn't the walkers evolve? I know we're getting a lot of weird stuff to see."

"It really ups the stakes for us. I thought it was a great way to bring back the walkers in the first few episodes," McDermitt, who has played Eugene since season four, told Insider.

"When I first started watching the show, I didn't really know any of the rules of the zombie world. I may have peripherally known that you had to stab them in the head, but to see one of those first walkers that Rick encounters pick up the teddy bear and to see Morgan's wife try the door handle when she's trying to get in, that scared the shit out of me," McDermitt said of his reaction to some of the more animated zombies on season one.

McDermitt added: "I had heard people say, 'Well, that's not how most walkers are, but "The Walking Dead" is doing its own thing. Whatever rules they create, that's how it's gonna be.' I just love that. We've been able to bring that back. It ups the stakes. It makes things a lot more dangerous."

"At this point in the series, everyone has probably encountered some variation of these smart walkers, but they've just not really talked about as much," Marquand, who has played Aaron since season five, told Insider about his reaction to the show's smarter zombies.

Speaking of the show's executive producer and special effects guru, Marquand added, "I know that Greg Nicotero has always been a zombie purest. He likes the slow-moving, kind of ambling walker, but I'm personally very excited about this development because I've always been a fan of '28 Days Later' zombies where they're like running at you full tilt."

"I imagine it's not a new experience for Connie or any of the other survivors thus far because it's a throwback, as you mentioned to the first season, when the walkers were newer and smarter and faster," Ridloff, who has played fan-favorite Connie on the series since season nine, told Insider. 

"Over the years, it seems like they've slowed down — they're getting older and softer and easier to handle — and I like that throwback to the first season," Ridloff continued, adding that she believes Connie would fare well against these variant walkers.

"Connie probably would just handle those walkers the same way she did as she started out at the beginning of the apocalypse," she said.

"It sounds like they'd be more fun to kill. Give you a little more fight, little something to do," Gilliam said of the variant walkers, adding that they'd finally give Father Gabriel a bit more of a challenge than the zombies they've been dealing with for the past decade.

In a separate interview, Angel Theory told Insider that she was also excited about the smarter walkers on the show's final episodes for the same reason as Gilliam.

"The normal walkers, they're just slow," Theory, who has played Kelly since season nine, said. "I feel like you can kill a few of them. Now, we have more of a challenge. We have to run faster and really focus on trying to survive now. Now, you have to be quick-witted."

Theory hinted that someone may get left in the dust if the smarter zombies are chasing a few survivors. 

"If someone is hurt, if that's the case, you might have to leave them behind because now you got walkers that are running and doing backflips and stuff," Theory said.

Are we about to see zombies doing backflips? 

You can follow along with our "TWD" coverage here.