Jeffrey Dean Morgan exploded into long-running zombie series The Walking Dead in the season 6 finale, way back in 2016. Negan and his trusty baseball bat Lucille started off by bashing the brains of some of Rick’s loyal Survivors and went on to wage all-out war that didn’t end until the season 8 finale.
The eleventh and final season sees Negan as a change man, rehabilitated in jail. And he’s even formed a truce with Maggie (Lauren Cohan), leading to an upcoming spin-off starring the two of them. But Morgan never planned to still be in The Walking Dead universe eight years later, as he initially signed on for three years.
Speaking at NYCC, Morgan said; “I think, originally, it was gonna be three years. I think that was [the plan]. I had a conversation with Scott [Gimple, executive producer and then-showrunner], and it was like, ‘You gotta be on it for at least three years if you want to be a part of this show.’ I was like, ‘That seems like a long time.'”
Morgan continued; “Little did I know that eight years later or whatever, we’d still be here. That eight years has gone by like that. Like that. I can’t believe that we’re here and celebrating the end of this show as we know it. It’s unbelievable to me. There’s been so many kind of iterations of this show through the years – losing people, having people come back.”
