Whenever someone dies on AMC’s wildly popular zombie series "The Walking Dead," it’s usually with a spray of blood and gore. It happens so often, it’s almost expected.

But the show’s creators found a way to peg the needle on the shock meter this season, its third: They killed off Lori Grimes, a lead character played by Hawaii actress Sarah Wayne Callies.

And they gave it a twist, too. Instead of being eaten alive by zombies, Grimes died during childbirth in a scene shared with Chandler Riggs, the boy who plays her son Carl. It was a rare moment on a show in which characters often die screaming.

"We had a remarkable opportunity to say goodbye," said the 35-year-old Callies, who grew up in Hawaii and graduated from Punahou School. "The thing that worked out really well was that everything we needed to say to each other we got to say in that scene. And a few of those lines were mine, and some were as much about Sarah and Chandler as they were about Lori and Carl."

Callies and Riggs had forged a relationship typically found between mother and son. Callies took her role as his on-set mom seriously and said she was determined to keep the boy from becoming a spoiled child actor.

"I love that kid," she said. "Chandler was almost like an appendage that first season. He was never farther away than my arm in almost every scene."

That made the days leading up to the final scene difficult. They could barely say hello without having to gulp hard on their emotions, Callies said.

The final scene required nearly eight hours to complete, including an hour spent having a prosthetic belly glued on to simulate her pregnancy, Callies said.

Grimes dies during an emergency C-section, and the show’s producers consider it one of the bloodiest scenes they have ever done. She was stretched out on her back on a concrete floor.

"Once I was on the ground, there was so much blood that I stuck and I couldn’t get up," Callies said. "We didn’t want to mess up the continuity between shots, so I said, ‘OK, I will stay here.’"

She was on the floor for three hours, mostly naked, covered in sticky stage blood and shaking from the cold of the air-conditioned set.

On "The Walking Dead" an actor’s death scene draws the entire cast for what becomes a family farewell. It was all that and more for Callies, who until then had been the one to organize the "death dinners."

"People kept coming to chat with me," she said. "It was very sweet. People would curl up on the floor next to me and try not to get bloody and talk."

It took about a gallon of solvent to unstick Callies when it was done. The guy who cleaned the shower she used afterward told her there was so much blood that it looked like a crime scene — and that he screamed when he saw it.

Callies had known since April that her character was doomed. After filming of the episode was completed in June, she wondered if fans would find out. Every other press interview included the same question in the weeks leading to the Oct. 14 season premiere: Are you afraid for your character?

"I always said, ‘No I am not.’ You take a job like this knowing that everyone’s number comes up."

The show’s huge audiences — its season three premiere, with 10.9 million viewers, made it the biggest drama in basic cable history — gave Callies more visibility than ever. And even though she just finished a starring role in New Line Cinema’s "Black Sky," which follows a town trying to survive a deadly tornado, Callies isn’t sure what will come next.

"I think my mom would really like it," she said, "if I was on a sitcom."

AND that’s a wrap …

Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.