The Walking Dead: Jeffrey Dean Morgan ‘giddy’ about playing Negan
By Susie Graham
Negan is giddy! Well, not exactly. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is giddy about playing Negan on AMC’s The Walking Dead.
“Negan is special in a lot of ways and the more kind of digging I do into Negan, the more excited I get. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve been this giddy about doing a role.”
That’s what Jeffrey Dean Morgan told Entertainment Weekly in a radio interview. “Kind of the excitement level of bringing this guy to life is at such a peak right now, I don’t know how I’m going to survive till April [when the show goes back into production].”
Fans of The Walking Dead are trying to survive until February 14th right now when The Walking Dead returns from its midseason break. We will hear tell about Negan with Daryl, Sasha and Abraham being detained by some of Negan’s Saviors currently.
Comic readers and non-comic readers alike are excited and terrified for Negan’s arrival, likely in the season 6 finale and certainly in season 7. It should make fans happy that the bigger-than-life character is excited to bring the role off the page and to our home screens.
Morgan seems to be getting into really looking deeper into the character–something we like to do here at Undead Walking so I like to head that! “Every time I look at the graphic novel — which in the past few weeks next to my bedside I’ve just had stacks of Walking Dead stuff; and so when I’m not memorizing my Good Wife lines and trying to figure that out I’ll just grab one of these things and look at it — and I will read and reread and see something different in it each time.”
He’s also digging deep to see if he can find a heart in Negan. “I think the challenge for me in this role is going to be: Is there any heart in Negan? And for me, I look at that as a challenge as an actor and that’s the kind of thing I embrace and really look forward to.” (Via Supernatural convention in Pasadena)
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This is particularly interesting considering Scott Gimple’s remarks about Negan. “Negan is terrifying in that he isn’t a psychopath. He’s charismatic and funny. And even sort of friendly. But he just kills, and it doesn’t bother him. He’s the star of his own movie and we’re all Red Shirts. He’s not nuts. But you can’t reason with him because he’s got it all worked out. He knows exactly the way the world works. And he’s the one in control. Negan also has a bizarre sense of empathy. He actually recognizes your bad luck in you running into him, yet it doesn’t change a damn thing.” (Via TVLine)
As a non-comic reader I’m starting to get fascinated by Negan and with Jeffrey Dean Morgan. A few years ago, I was annoyed by mentions of Negan and with comic readers who spoiled things and who commented on everything with “if you would read the comics, you would know…”, or my favorite, the plain, “read the comics.”
I’m a reader. I like to read, but this is a whole ball game of its own and some of us have reasons for not reading the comics. I digress. I’m giddy, too, Mr. Morgan.