WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 11, Episode 1, “Acheron: Part 1,” which aired Sunday on AMC.
The Walking Dead's Jeffrey Dean Morgan recently admitted he had trouble mentioning Glenn's name in the Season 11 premiere.
"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,'" Morgan told Entertainment Weekly. "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.'"
Fans will recall that Morgan's character Negan brutally murdered Glenn using his infamous baseball bat Lucille during the show's Season 7 premiere. Negan put salt in what fans thought to be a long-healed wound when he referenced the brutal murder in the show's latest episode ("Acheron: Part I") while telling Maggie she wouldn't let her put him down like a dog, "Like Glenn was."
"I tried to nix the line completely," Morgan said. "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."
While the actor doubled down on the fact he didn't want to say Glenn's name in the scene, he understands that doing so elicited the exact reaction from fans that showrunners wanted.
"I always have said that regardless of what Negan does that is good, there is still that Negan inside of him," he said. "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.'"
By mentioning Glenn, Morgan pointed out, the audience completely lost any faith in Negan and the fact that, while he might be right about Maggie leading the group into danger, he's still the bad guy -- and shouldn't be trusted.
"But it also lent itself to Daryl having his punch at me, which we were kind of leading up to, too. Because I think Negan is thinking the whole time that Daryl is in on this," Morgan said. "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!'"
New episodes of The Walking Dead's 11th and final season air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC and are available to stream early on AMC+.
Source: Entertainment Weekly