Fear the Walking Dead

Greg Nicotero - Executive Producer / Special Effects Makeup Supervisor

Entering his 37th year in the industry, Greg Nicotero has never forgotten his roots. Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 70’s, it never occurred to this young movie and special effects buff that Hollywood was literally in his backyard. Auteur director George Romero would be the first of many to recognize something within Nicotero and forge a relationship of collaboration as a special effects make-up artist. Within two years he found himself in Los Angeles working with Sam Raimi, James Cameron, and Wes Craven on landmark films such as Evil Dead 2, Aliens, and the A Nightmare On Elm Street series. The climate that embraced practical make-up effects allowed Nicotero to partner with Howard Berger and together they created the longest running effects house in Hollywood, The KNB EFX Group, Inc. Founded in 1988 and still as vital as ever, Nicotero and his team have worked on nearly 700 film and television programs that stretch through cinema as a who’s who of horror, science fiction, and thrillers. With titles such as Reservoir Dogs, Spawn, The Mist, Scream, and Sin City, this unique troupe of artists have brought life to stories and characters of all kinds, all the while innovating and perfecting their craft. Partnering with directors such as Frank Darabont, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and Robert Rodriguez, Nicotero fine-tuned his craft as an effects artist and gradually moved into providing 2nd unit direction on several feature films. After a stint on a number of movies across the globe (Inglourious Basterds, The Book Of Eli, Predators, and Transformers), Nicotero found himself in 2010 designing zombies for the AMC series, The Walking Dead. Within months he’d become the producing director on the hit show and to this date has directed 33 episodes of the series. His work on The Pacific, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad have garnered him nearly a dozen Emmy nominations and four wins. As the zombie epic enters its eleventh season, Nicotero has debuted his new critically acclaimed series Creepshow, an anthology comprised of twelve terrifying tale per season inspired by the original 1982 film of the same name. He is currently developing and prepping seasons 2 and 3 of this series. He is the executive producer/Showrunner and also directed 2 segments on Season 1. Nicotero has also had a hand in producing Fear The Walking Dead, while supervising make-up effects for HBO’s The Watchmen, HBO’s Lovecraft Country and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.