'The journey in the car to the airport was horrendous...' Andrew Lincoln got homesick on The Walking Dead

Andrew Lincoln got homesick when he was making 'The Walking Dead'.

The 50-year-old actor played Rick Grimes in the hit post-apocalyptic horror drama for several years but he always missed life in his native Britain.

Andrew praised his wife Gael Anderson - with whom he has two children Matilda and Arthur - for always supporting his career and joining him Stateside.

In an interview with Radio Times, he said: "Every time, the journey in the car to the airport was horrendous. I was already homesick.

"I would view with dread the prospect of being away for eight months of filming. We were fortunate that my wife is such an extraordinary woman and was able to up sticks and build a life anywhere. I just didn’t want to be the Brit abroad."

Andrew – who appeared in seasons 1–9, returning as a special guest star in Season 11 - is set to reprise his role in the upcoming spin-off show 'The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live', which follows the battle-scarred Rick and his lover Michonne (Danai Gurira) as they try to survive the zombie-infested world.

The actor explained he wanted to pick up their story that was left "unfinished".

When asked why he was returning to the series, he said: "Because people would stop me in the street and go, 'Where’s Rick?' There was an unfinished story. And I was talked into it by Danai and Scott [M. Gimple, one of the series producers]. But I didn’t want it to feel like a spin-off.

"I wanted to complete a story that we left unfinished. It was about reuniting two lovers and seeing if their love could survive time and distance apart."

Andrew added the upcoming series gave them "an opportunity to tell a bigger story".

He said: "'The Walking Dead' characters have been scrabbling around in the dirt for years. What if we tell a more operatic story of what the grown-ups have been up to in the apocalypse – rebuilding society? What if there was a viable restart going on?

"It’s a really interesting question because it occupied my life for so long, and because it was an unfinished symphony, to a degree.

"I needed to complete it. That’s why this is such an important, momentous full-stop – with a bow on top – to that story."