Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3.

Negan was first introduced into The Walking Dead TV universe in the Season 6 finale, “Last Day on Earth.” His arrival marked a pivotal moment in the series, introducing a ruthless man whose brutal leadership style reshaped the survivors’ world and changed the life of Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) forever. In the time since then, Negan has become a more complex character in Dead City, grappling with his past actions and seeking redemption for his past actions, which includes brutally murdering Maggie’s husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun). They’ve both had to make morally questionable decisions to protect their loved ones, and while Maggie will never be able to forgive what Negan did, they make each other better people.

In this exclusive Collider Signature in-depth conversation, Morgan digs into the journey he’s taken with Negan and how it’s all led to who the character is now, more than 10 years after his first appearance. During the interview, he discusses why now was the right time to shake things up with the franchise and with Negan and Maggie’s dynamic, how different it was for Negan to find a friend in Dillard (Jimmi Simpson) before it all went horribly awry, shooting Maggie and Negan’s version Before Sunrise with Episode 6, how they’re each other’s chosen family at this point, and what their new partnership could look like in a possible Season 4. He also shares why he loved the experience of making Sterling Point, which will be returning to Prime Video for Season 2, and that family is always the priority for him when it comes to finding that next acting project.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan Says It Was Time To Change Things Up With ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Season 3

“It was important to find a way to shift things and be able to move this show forward.”

Image via AMC

COLLIDER: You definitely changed things up a lot with Dead City this season.

JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN: Thank fucking God! That was the whole idea for this year. I felt like we needed a change, and I think we found a way to do that. Really, it was bringing in (showrunner) Seth [Hoffman] and having a fresh set of eyes and finding a way for this relationship, which has been fraught with issues for over 10 years, or 17 years in show years, to be able to move forward in that space of me having killed Glenn and these horrible things that have happened. That was a tricky maneuver, and we found a way to do it. For me, it was a joy. I really had a fun year shooting this season, between scenes with Lauren [Cohan] that we’d never done before and the Jimmi Simpson of it all, I just had so much fun. Every day, I had a blast and couldn’t have had more fun.

But it’s hard. When you’ve been a show that has been as successful as this franchise has been and has multiple spinoffs, and you have two characters that inherently hate each other, and one especially hates the other, you can only play that for so long before you lose people. You might even lose an actor or two. And so, it was important to find a way to shift things and be able to move this show forward, and yet be in the same space that we’ve always been with this past that they have and not ignoring that. It’s a tightrope walk in, and I think we were able to pull it off.

It feels like Negan is in a different mental place this season. He seems to be reflecting in ways that are affecting him more than usual. Is that something that was intentional? Was that something you wanted to explore this season?

MORGAN: Seth and I had a lot of conversations about where Negan would be. After the death of Ginny, Negan is a mess. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back in Negan’s case. When we find him at the beginning of this year, he’s probably more down than he’s ever been. He certainly doesn’t feel good about himself or in this world that he’s living in. The perfect spot for him, which he happens to find, is Dillard’s bar. He not only finds a person that he can tolerate, but that he kind of likes, and he can disappear for a while. And if anybody needs to disappear right now and be reflective and decide what is next, I think it’s Negan. And so, we do find him a bit of a mess at the start of this season, and it takes him a while to crawl out of it. It takes Maggie to get him to snap out of it.

We’ve seen her come to him before, with some stuff she needs help with, and Negan will do it, but that has never worked out well for him. He’s been stabbed twice by her. In trying to make amends for some stuff, he has the guilt that still haunts him. These two people have been together longer than any of the people on the show, except for Carol with Daryl. I don’t think either of them trust each other, but they can predict what the other person is going to do. They’re each other’s dysfunctional family in a way, as well as Hershel, and they are very dysfunctional.

This year, there was a concerted effort to move this relationship dial, one way or another. At the beginning, it could have gone either way. Either Negan was going to disappear or die, or what happens would happen. Negan sees the bigger picture way before Maggie does. The people that we met along the way this year weren’t the ones that should be leading. Negan didn’t trust them from the jump, and he thought that Maggie should be leading this community. Negan has an incredible amount of faith in Maggie. I think Maggie will never fully trust Negan, but she has to lean on him. He’s the one person where she knows what he’s going to do. She knows that he’s going to be by her side. For the right reasons or wrong reasons, she knows that she can play on the guilt of that forever, but she does more than that this year. She opens up to Negan, which I find fascinating.

What’s made the season what it was this year is that we see a different side of Maggie. Maggie has been playing the mad or sad widow for 10 years, and we see a different side this season. There was a line that I improvised in a scene this year, and she smiled. I remember seeing her do it and I remember thinking, “That’s a fucking choice.” I said, “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you smile.” I think that was in Episode 1 or 2. That changed the trajectory again, without us even knowing it. Seth leaned into that as well, and it gave us more places to go. It was a completely different season and yet we’re still built on that foundation that we can’t stray far from.

Morgan Believes That Negan Played a Role in Transforming Dillard Into ’The Walking Dead: Dead City’s Season 3 Villain

“Negan comes in and becore you know it, Dillard’s got Lucille in his hand and he’s playing piñata with some heads.”

Image via AMC

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Negan feels like somebody who is typically a pretty good judge of people’s character and is someone who can pretty easily predict where people are going to end up. What do you think he missed in Dillard?

MORGAN: I don’t know if he missed anything. It’s funny, maybe he did it, but he also pushed Dillard. Dillard was fine. Dillard was cool. He was living his own little life. He had his little ecosystem of happiness and food and all his shit above and below the bar there. And then, Negan comes in and before you know it, Dillard’s got Lucille in his hand and he’s playing piñata with some heads. In a lot of ways, Negan pushed Dillard. The only thing with Dillard is that, from the jump, we find out there’s something a little off with him, obviously. He has relationships with walkers and can communicate with them, or thinks he can, all of which I think amused Negan in a certain sense and frustrated him in another. More than anything, I think Negan just finally finds somebody that he’s comfortable around and can have this banter with and is the closest thing to a friend we’ve ever seen Negan have. The dark turn that Dillard takes, in the middle of the season, I was like, “We can’t lose Jimmi. If we do another year or two, I want him to be a part of the show. He’s so fucking great.”

But I knew the last image of this season was him being a walker with his people and communicating with these walkers. I could never get that out of my head because I thought it was such a perfect ending for this perfect/imperfect character. I was like, “Hey, what if we shot two endings? What if we shot an ending where you turn into the big bad at the end of the year, and you die and you’re with your people? But then, what if you don’t die and you stay with us for as long as possible?” He’s such a phenomenal actor and an even better human being. The fact of the matter is that he’s just a busy guy. He’s got other shows to do. This slot ended up working perfectly for him last year. He has six months off to do this season, but beyond that, we couldn’t count on anything, so that’s the way we went. I watched a couple of different cuts of the finale, and I just love that ending. I love Dillard in his happy place, or what I like to think is probably his happy place, and that’s where he wanted to be.

Things really start to spiral in Episode 5, when Negan makes the decision to kill Fabian. There’s something so interesting about the conversation that they have because Negan is testing him out before realizing that he has to kill him if he’s going to protect Maggie. What was that conversation like to shoot? Did you talk about how that would evolve? Were there different versions of that conversation?

MORGAN: My buddy Sylvain White directed that episode, who directed a film I did called The Losers, and he also directed the last episode of The Boys that I did – not the series finale episode, but the episode before the series finale. It was then that I said, “Hey, would you come and direct Dead City?,” and he did two episodes. That was a big scene. The dialogue was a little fucked up. The kid who played Fabian (Michael Emery) was a really sweet kid. I had a couple scenes with him, and I remember he was just nervous. He had a nervous energy, which worked for the character really well. Not only do I have this guy who I think is going to kill Maggie that I’m going to have to deal with right now, but Negan is fucking with him until he says, “I’m going to have to kill the bitch,” meaning Maggie. Immediately, he was dead.

For Negan, that’s all that he needed to hear. The topper of it is that Renata comes in. Negan has never trusted this woman and doesn’t believe that she should be the leader of this community or anyone else. Like you said, Negan has a pretty good feel for people. He has always read people, or thinks he has read them. More often than not, he’s been right and not wrong about people. He’s also putting on a show for her. It’s Negan the showman coming out. If Renata hadn’t walked in, there’s no doubt that Fabian would still be dead, but it probably wouldn’t have been quite as dramatic and large as it was.

Negan still has that flare. The piñata thing was a moment where we got to see that Season 1 Negan – my first season as Negan – is still part of who this man is. I think that’s very important, and I will always fight for that. I don’t ever want to become castrated and lose that aspect of who he is, no matter how much he evolves and how many different layers we show and how much he wants to protect Maggie and Hershel. Whether it’s out of guilt or some obligation or just this dysfunctional family aspect, he’s still got to be Negan. I think that’s incredibly important. That was a big part of that scene. I thought that was a time for Negan to go above and beyond where he normally would in this season and take it to a level, and he does. A lot of that is a show for Renata because he’s like, “Fuck you! You’re not going to tell me what to do and how to do it. And fuck this guy because he threatened my family.” In Negan’s head, Maggie is his family.

A Negan and Maggie Meet-Cute Was Certainly Unexpected in ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Season 3

“By the way, I never heard the team meet-cute until we shot that episode … I kept calling it out Hallmark Christmas movie.”

Image via AMC

When you first learned about and read Episode 6, with how everything would play out for Maggie and Negan in a very different version of this world, could you ever have imagined you’d be filming an episode of The Walking Dead where Maggie and Negan would have their own meet-cute?

MORGAN: No, I didn’t. By the way, I never heard the term meet-cute until we shot that episode. That’s the first time I’d ever heard that term. I kept calling it our Hallmark Christmas movie. But no, not in a million years. I remember when Seth pitched it, it was such a head scratcher. I was like, “What?!” I get that we’ve been on the air for a while and we wanted to do some new shit this year, but I was like, “This is a fucking reach.” But then, the more we talked about it and how it would tie into what was happening within our story and ultimately how it ends, there’s Maggie and Negan, and they’re exactly who they’re supposed to be.

They don’t learn anything in that episode. Negan is going to kill a guy, and Maggie’s going back to the farm. Nothing changed. All of these ideas that they talk about in the course of the episode, none of it comes to fruition. They’re still Maggie and Negan. She’s got to go back to the farm and struggle, and Negan is going to go kill her guy and spend the rest of his life in prison. Nothing is learned. And yet, I think so much was learned in that episode. Getting to shoot in this world with no apocalypse and just two strangers meeting, it was our Before Sunrise with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. It’s our version of what would happen if these people met in New York City and had 20 hours together, and what kind of conversations they would have.

It was just really refreshing. I don’t know how else to put it. While we were shooting it, I was like, “This is the craziest fucking thing.” There’s a lot of speculation about whether Maggie and Negan would ever hook up and people have freaked out about that, but that’s not going to ever happen. I love that that’s where people’s minds go. But what we found out in that episode is that it doesn’t matter the circumstances, it doesn’t matter if there are zombies or not, because you’ve got two people that are going to be who they are.

I like that we had those conversations, and that they listen to each other and became each other’s confidants in a way that we’ve never seen on this show before. I thought that was super fascinating and so fun to play. It was like being on a different show and yet not. I was like, “I feel like I know this character, this Negan Smith guy, but I look in the mirror, and I feel like I don’t recognize him at all.” It was about finding that weird balance. I watched the episode and very much enjoyed it. We were like, “We could do this show for another 10 years, and every year do an alternate universe episode, and it would make sense and work, and every ending could be different.” That part of it was fun.

I loved the conversation between Maggie and Negan in Episode 7, when she was making the drink for him at the bar. There were a lot of interesting moments with them working through their feelings this season, and that was one of the most interesting.

MORGAN: Yeah. The scene where she was making the drink was a 17-page scene. It was cut with other shit going on in the show, so it would be two pages of us talking, and then two pages of somebody doing something else before it would cut back to the bar, but we shot it all as one scene. It was like doing a play. We were done in half a day because we both knew it so well. The hardest part was continuity with the drink pouring. That was interesting because you didn’t know if she was going to poison him. A lot of stuff was going on, but a lot was said in the course of that scene. More than anything, I can’t tell you how much fun we both had this season, just getting to take these characters to different places with each other.

Negan and Maggie Are Each Other’s Chosen Family Now, for Better or Worse

“She knows that he’s not going to say no to her, out of obligation, guilt, and a lot of reasons.”

There’s a moment in the finale that feels like it’s been a long time coming, when Maggie says to Negan, “You’ve got me. We’re forever connected. We’re outright chained to one another.” She can’t forgive him, but they’ve moved past what has happened. What did that moment feel like to you?

MORGAN: At this point, that’s probably true. Negan is either going to go off and be on his own or be with Maggie, and not in that way, but by her side, backing her play. I don’t see another out for Negan, at this point. It’s either disappearing on his own, or he’s going to help Maggie achieve whatever she thinks she can achieve. After that conversation, we know what he’s going to do. He’s going to stick by her. He does believe with all his heart that she is the leader that this world needs. He says that at the beginning of the season, and he doesn’t change his mind throughout it. He is behind that 100%.

I don’t think he ever saw himself as being her lawman, her enforcer, her sheriff, or whatever she asks him to be. I don’t think that was ever in the cards for him, but I also don’t think that he’s in a position where he is going to say no to her. And she knows that he’s not going to say no to her, out of obligation, guilt, and a lot of reasons. That opens the door to some stuff that we’ve never done before, so we’ll see. I love the words that she spoke. I think that encapsulated the season without saying the words, but for her to say them was important, for a lot of different reasons. It was as important for her to hear those words come out of her mouth as it was for Negan to hear them. When she says those words, he’s not going to leave. Here they are. They’re each other’s chosen family at this point.

What do you think that new partnership will be like? Do you think they’ll discuss things together? Do you think she’ll give him orders? How do you see that new dynamic working out?

MORGAN: That’s interesting. I think a little bit of all of the above. I don’t think he’s going to take orders real well. I can already hear him fighting back against her telling him what to do, but I think he trusts her to do the right thing. If she is making the right choices for this new world, whatever they may be, I think he will keep his mouth relatively shut. He’ll always have something to say, but I think they’re at a place in their relationship where they are very honest with each other. They don’t have to like each other, but they’re very honest with each other at this point. I find that to be very interesting. I don’t think they’re going to hold back anything going forward. I don’t know that it will ever work out the way that Maggie foresees it because Negan has his issues and, at any given moment, he can disappear.

But at the same time, it depends on what kind of promises he makes to her. He has always been a man of his word. That has always meant something to him, more than it means for a lot of people. If he says, “Look, I’m going to help you do this, and then I’m going to ride off into the sunset,” or “I’m here with you for the long haul,” then I think he’ll eat it, to a certain extent, and she can boss him around. But I think she’s going to have to be careful who she bosses him around in front of. He’s not going to let her make a fool out of him, ever. He would fight back in that sense because he’s too lippy not too. It’s an interesting dynamic that he sees her as this leader and has been pushing her there all year because that puts her in a position over him. Let’s see how that works out.

Morgan Loved Getting To Sink His Teeth Into His ‘Sterling Point’ Character and Just Be a Regular Dad

“It was a really special show to be a part of.”

Image via Prime Video

You have this season of Dead City out around the same time as Sterling Point, and those two shows couldn’t be more different. One of my favorite things about Sterling Point is the relationship between Joe and Ellis. How did it feel to be able to explore a relationship with a young actor that you didn’t have to kill because of a walker or save from a walker?

MORGAN: I loved it. I got to be a dad, flaws and all, and I am a dad. I have a 16-year-old son who actually is in Sterling Point. I got to do a scene with my own son. It was such a joy going to work and just being a dad and not covered in blood or hitting something. I do hit someone in the face. I’ve known Megan Park, the creator who also directed the show and wrote it, for a long time, and we’ve wanted to work together forever. She sent me the script, and Joe comes in and he’s tattooed and in parentheses it says “Jeffrey Dean Morgan,” and I was like, “Well, I have to do it now.” I couldn’t get past page four before I was like, “Well, I’m in.” I had so much fun doing it.

I’ve been Negan for a while. I got to be Joe Kessler on The Boys, and I’ve done other stuff in the last 10 years, but I feel like I got to sink my teeth into Joe. Being a dad of a teenage kid, I’m familiar with. I was calling him “dude,” just like I call my son “dude.” It just fell into a natural, easy rhythm. And I loved the writing and how they shot the show. Every kid in that is so talented. Any scene I had with any of the kids, I had my mind blown by how good they were. It was a really special show to be a part of. I spent last summer, a year ago right now, in Muskoka with my whole entire family with me. I had a little house on the lake, and I had a little dock and a boat. I would take my kids tubing all day, and then I’d go work at night. I had the time of my life. It was a joy. The only problem is that both shows came out in the same week. Two years of work are over like that. But I got an opportunity to do something different. You can see a little bit of range, finally. So, there you go.

Do you know what you’re going to be doing next?

MORGAN: I don’t know what’s next. I would like to close the chapter on The Walking Dead in the right way. Lauren [Conrad] and I would like to close this chapter in the right way. There will be another [season] of Sterling Point. I get so many scripts, but a lot of them aren’t good. I got offered a show, and I can’t tell you what it was because I didn’t end up doing it – someone else did, but I really wanted to do it – but it went from 10 episodes to 23, and I can’t be away from my family for a year. I just can’t. And that show could have gone for 10 years, easy. So, there’s stuff. We’ll find something. For me, it’s always juggling being a dad. That’s what’s important to me. Being a dad is number one, and then you hopefully can work in some good jobs in between.

The Walking Dead: Dead City airs on AMC. Sterling Point is available to stream on Prime Video.

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Release Date

June 15, 2023

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AMC

Showrunner

Eli Jorne, Seth Hoffman

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Directors

Kevin Dowling, Loren Yaconelli

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Writers

Brenna Kouf

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