Jeffrey Dean Morgan Talks About the One Line He Fought Against Saying in THE WALKING DEAD Season 11 Premiere

The Walking Dead came back with a vengeance this week as fans got to see the Season 11 opener. It was full of action and tension, and one of those particularly intense scenes came from the boiling point between Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Maggie (Lauren Cohan), and Daryl (Norman Reedus). But as crazy and uncomfortable as that scene was, Morgan originally fought to change it.

In the scene where Negan erupts at Maggie and Daryl, accusing them of luring him to be killed on their outing, Negan says, "I am not gonna let you drag me through the mud, filth, and slime to put me down like a dog. Like Glenn was." Dude. Harsh! That immediately kills any empathy that Negan had garnered over the past couple of seasons. And Morgan knew that would be true. In a recent interview with Morgan, he told Entertainment Weekly:

"I fought it! That's the one line that I immediately called [showrunner Angela Kang] and I was like, 'I can't say it. I can't f---ing bring up Glenn's name here. And I was like, 'Any goodwill that Negan has gotten on his side is going to go out the window the minute I say Glenn.' I tried to nix the line completely. I didn't think it was necessary. And I thought, for sure, they would let me change it. And so I filmed it three or four different ways. I tried everything else. I said, 'Your husband' and other stuff. But ultimately it was like, 'Well, let's just try the f---ing Glenn line.' And then, of course, when I saw the cut, I was like, 'Oh, f---ers!' [Laughs] They had to put it in."

Morgan points out that the line, which was followed by a punch to the face from Daryl, is necessary "to elicit the reaction exactly that you and I felt in seeing it."

"I always have said that regardless of what Negan does that is good, there is still that Negan inside of him. And at this point in the story, when that line comes out, it's kind of that whole speech where I am like, 'Why the f---are we following this woman? I'm living in her head, and she's leading us to our deaths.' We have no idea what we're going to. Negan is the voice of reason suddenly. And had he not said that Glenn line, the whole audience would've gone, 'He's right! He's f---ing right!' The minute I say that Glenn line, 50% of them, I lose immediately. It doesn't matter if he's right."

Negan mumbles to himself, "You're in on it," referring to Daryl, but later realizes that Maggie is acting alone in her suspected plot to kill him "away from the prying eyes of Alexandria." The line, of course, made the characters and fans alike go right back to that moment that Glenn was killed, and Morgan said it "also lent itself to Daryl having his punch at me, which we were kind of leading up to, too."

He added:

"Because I think Negan is thinking the whole time that Daryl is in on this. And that really, the only reason that he's there is to be killed. And he's sure that Daryl is in on it. So there's that little storyline going on there between the two of us, as well. But yeah, when I first read that line, I was like, 'Goddamnit!' [Laughs]"

I totally get why Morgan didn’t want to bring back that hate for him on the series! He had all but redeemed himself by saving the group and looking out for the people around him over the past couple of seasons, and he just had to go and pour salt back in that wound?! It was rough. But I get why they had to remind people who Negan is, and he was fearing for his own life, so he did act as a cornered animal.

The episode ended so crazy too with that cliffhanger! I can’t wait to see what happens in the season. New episodes of The Walking Dead hit AMC on Sundays.

via: CB