AMCIf you're still struggling with the fact that you've got to wait until October to find out who was on the receiving end of Negan's fatal beat down in the season six finale of The Walking Dead, you're not alone. The man himself, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, sympathizes with you.
Taking part in a conference call with reporters the morning after his big debut, Morgan shared his thoughts on the episode's lack of resolution. "I didn't know it was going to be a cliffhanger until I watched the show. That's just how it's done in my world. I don't know if any of the cast knew exactly how it was going to end, which caused the uncertainty and emotion that was going on," he said. "That said, in talking with [executive producers] Scott [Gimple] and Robert [Kirkman], I think that they're explanation was that it was the end of the story for that season, and that is that Rick has kind of lost control. And then there's Negan. And Negan has all the control. I think that's where they wanted to end the story and it's not about the death of that person…I understand the fans frustration. I get that, that being said...I have to trust these writers and showrunners that they know what they're doing."
Morgan also shared that, while viewers were spared the gory details of Negan's skull-bashing last night in favor of the cliffhanger, he expects season seven to kick off in bloody fashion. "That would be the hope, yeah. That's the impression I have, that we will pick up directly from what we saw, that season six ended on that note and season seven is going to pick up right where we left off," he said. "So, yeah, you're going to see who's at the end of that bat, and what happened from there."
Might we learn a little of Negan's backstory while we're at it? Morgan certainly hopes so. "I talked to Robert Kirkman after we did Talking Dead and he is kind of doing the backstory of Negan now, so whether or not or when we see that—I hope we do, I can't answer that," he admitted. "But hopefully we'll find out more about Negan as we go. I mean, I think his backstory is going to be pretty fascinating."
When asked whether or not he's playing Negan as a bad guy, Morgan shied away from that comparison. "I never approach it like he's the bad guy. I approach it like he's a guy. Especially in a world like the zombie apocalypse," he said. "I feel like he's a guy who, I think the back story of Negan is that he used to be a used car salesman. That's what I know and there's not a whole lot beyond that."
"I think that there's a lot of similarities between him and Rick," Morgan added. "If we were following Negan's story from day one on The Walking Dead, the audience would be rooting for him."
For now, Morgan's just studying up on Negan's story line ("I've got a stack of The Walking Dead comics right next to my bed here," he revealed) and prepping for his life to change. "It's already getting weird. I've got a different life. I live up on a farm, I don't deal with social media," he revealed. "I love what I do for a living, but the other side of that aspect of being famous has got zero interest in me…We'll see how well I handle it."
While the audience will likely come to hate and fear Negan even more this fall, Morgan's relishing the opportunity, gushing, "All I can say about my bad guy roles is I really love doing them."
To see where Morgan's Negan lands in our ranking of The Walking Dead's villains, be sure to click through our new gallery!
The Walking Dead returns for season seven this October on AMC.