THE WALKING DEAD's Jeffrey Dean Morgan Talks About Negan's Cursing and Swinging That Bat
Just a few days ago, I wrote about actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan's reaction to finding out he'd be playing the role of the sadistic baseball bat-swinging Negan on AMC's wildly successful The Walking Dead. Now the actor is talking a bit more about his upcoming turn as the series' Biggest Bad of them all, and he had some interesting things to say to EW Radio (via Vulture) about whether or not he plans on staying true to the source material, and how he'll handle the character's foul language:
"The character itself is going to be as close as humanly possible...Look, [Negan's cursing] is a speed bump. I’m not going to say it’s an issue because they’re working on it. We’re going to push AMC — the plan is to push them as far as they can because it’s who Negan is. He uses some colorful language. And I use some colorful language. And reading the comic, it’s important. So we’ll see where that lands. It’s our intention that this character is going to leap off the pages of the comic book. It’s very important that that’s who it is. Some of the characters there’s much more leeway, but Negan is a guy that you want to keep as true as possible, and that would be how I want to play him as well."
I'm sure fans of the comic who already know all about the character are thrilled to hear that, and it will definitely be interesting to see just how far the showrunner and producers are going to be able to push the network when it comes to language. Breaking Bad dropped a couple of F bombs here and there during its run, but the audio for those specific words was always cut out — will we see something similar here, or will they alter the language enough that the same intensity and points are made without actually using those exact words? We'll find out.
In the meantime, you don't need to worry about Morgan's swing — he's got that under control. "I don’t need to practice my swing. I grew up with a bat in my hands." Rick and company better keep their heads on a swivel...while they still can.