The Walking Dead’s season 10 finale, ‘Here’s Negan’, gave fans a glimpse into the life of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan, just as the zombie apocalypse broke out and dropped a whole different spotlight on a character who has been on the road to redemption several times In ‘Here’s Negan’, Morgan plays with his partner, actress Hilarie Burton, who played Negan’s negative wife, Lucille. Together they showed us a new side of Negan. Instead of the malicious, clever-crack killer we were introduced to years ago, this Negan was a dedicated and caring man who did his best to protect his wife in a devastated, stepping world.
Check out our review of The Walking Dead’s “Here’s Negan.”
We chatted with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton about this important flashback episode and what it was like for Burton to actually step into the shoes of a character who has long been a major mystery in the series. Now that Negan has made peace with his past and said goodbye to Lucille (in memory and her ‘bat’ form), will he move forward now? And what does that mean for his feud with Maggie?
The end of season 10 reveals a newer negan
While ‘Here’s Negan’ ends, Morgan’s Negan Smith decides to return to Alexandria, rejecting the soft exile Carol offered him at the top of the episode. He knows Maggie will probably chase him sometime, but he does not want to hide from his fate. By trying to save Lucille and then discovering that she had already taken her own life when he returned to their basement, ‘created the Negan we know and love,’ Morgan explained. “Or know and hate. That was the moment Negan was born. That was when Negan Smith died and Negan was born. After the end of the episode, when he had the ceremony with his bat, except that he changed completely and “flippen has his outlook on life and who he’s going to be, this is the first time he’s saying goodbye to his wife. It’s actually about saying goodbye to his wife.”
“Negan is not running out of it anymore,” Morgan added. “I mean, whatever happens, happens, but he’s going downhill. He’s going down on his terms. He’s just not in a place where he’s going to live alone in a cabin. He’s going downhill. Although I have to be careful with the terminology. I mean, he does not run from Maggie or anything. I think after all the time in jail, and all the reflection, I think it’s time for Negan to be back. In whatever form. al. “
Who then is the Negan who appears at the end of the final season 10? “I think he’s probably somewhere between the man who came from Winnebago and the man who was with his wife during her last days. It’s going to fall somewhere in the middle. It’s going to be a newer Negan. Negan 2.0. I “think he will use the wisdom of the past and be a newer man. He’s not going to scare away any of the bulls.”
Of course, this does not mean that the Negan we came to know is dead and buried. As we saw during his time with The Whisperers, Negan can still be a big pain in the ass. “I think he can switch into that mode if he needs to. It’s almost a survival instinct for him,” Morgan said. “It was definitely with The Whisperers. But the eight years he spent in prison, I think, it definitely gives a person time for introspection, and I think he’s now trying to find his place in this new world among these people who of course not big fans.It is said, I never want to deviate from Negan as Negan.It’s always there.He just has more sides to him than the one that came from the Winnebago.As we all.We all have different sides. “
The beginning of the end of The Walking Dead
With ‘Here’s Negan’ in the books, there are now only 24 episodes of The Walking Dead left, with the first season 11 premiere arrives on August 22nd. Morgan is only a few episodes away in season 11, which takes longer to film than the normal schedule of the series, but, as he puts it, the world is wide open for Negan. “I think there is so much story left,” he said. ‘It’s so weird to go into the last year for everyone. I only know the delivery of four episodes because I only read the first four texts. We are filming incredibly well in a great way, not just because of COVID, but because we know it will be the final run. ‘
“That said, it was very exciting. These first three deliveries we shot were huge. It took us two months to take three deliveries. Normally we are five or six in. So they are big. I do not. I do not know how we are going to close it.I have no idea of a good idea, because it seems like we’re opening the story instead of closing it.As for Negan, you We have this character who feels now like a complete character and there is so much story to tell with him that we just see what the writers think and what I can do with the material that has been given to me. ‘
Negan: origin
As Morgan explains, the idea of telling Negan’s background story has been at work since joining the series. “We talked about it a hundred different ways, whether it was going to be a miniseries, a movie, or if we could somehow incorporate it into the show,” he said. “And when these COVID six episodes, as we call them, COVID happened, it seemed like a chore to go there on your own and be an independent person.”
Similarly, the fact that Hilarie Burton plays Lucille has been a fixed idea for some time. “I think I always said she would make a wonderful Lucille out of the jump,” Morgan said. “And over the years I think Angela [Kang, EP] and Scott [Gimple, EP] and the rest of the family got to know Hilarie and it helped a lot. It was a natural fit.
Burton, himself, had an explosion as Lucille. “Jeffrey has been saying ‘dibs on Lucille’ for years, ” she said. “But the reality of having to play a character who affirms so much of Negan’s behavior and declares who he is was a big step. I think Negan’s hurt, and his bravado and his behavior make perfect sense once you learn his backstory. “And it makes it easy for him to rejoice in contrast to how he was portrayed. Because he was brought in as a true bastard. And now he’s just doing the best he can.”
“Working together was the first time in a while that the two of us just had to visit,” she continues. “Except it’s not just the two of us. It was us and like a crew of 30 people around us. ‘
“Yeah, it was like an appointment,” Morgan added. “We need to get away from our children a little bit. Or at least eight hours a day. ‘
Play Lucille Undead
Actress Hilarie Burton, of course, did not just play Lucille. She has to play Lucille as a walker, and thus had to wrap up for a long time (because Negan did not put her down immediately). “I loved it. Like, I really loved it,” Burton shared. “I think the special effects section also had a good time, because usually when a member of the cast is full, it’s a sad thing, because it means their run ends. And we all went into that. knowing it was one episode and so there were no expectations to live forever and for me I can not do that kind of work.You know, I do Christmas movies and dress like an elf.So, to “Going to a full zombie was definitely a departure. really a good time with it. We would visit our children between the scenes and see our toddler’s reaction to it.”
Of course, with extensive walker makeup, there are extensive walker complications. “When Negan reacted to Lucille as a hiker, it was the first time Jeffrey saw me like that,” Burton said. He deliberately stayed away all day. And when he took the suitcase off my head, it was the first time he had seen me. Only really long for him to pass to me and that bag got attracted by the moisture on my mouth. If you see Lucille sniffing like a zombie, it was really a job, ‘she laughed. I was like, ‘I bet you drop your ass, but I can see you because I have a bag on my head, so let’s finish.’ “
A departure from the Walking Dead Comics
“Here’s Negan” borrows a lot from the comics, but it also strays a bit. In ways it’s more of a Lucille and Negan story rather than just a Negan story. “The one thing Hilarie and I were aware of when they approached us about this was that we knew that the comic book Lucille had really been transferred to a hospital bed with maybe two or three scenes,” Morgan said, “and I think really, because of COVID and what we could do, the writers were able to greatly expand the relationship and change the story in a way where she survived through the beginning of the apocalypse. ‘
“So it’s very different from the comic. One thing that is missing in the comic, however, is when you see Negan alone and try to help other people. He keeps touching these people and trying to help them and basically discovering that people are stupid and that’s why he “became kind of the Negan we know. Until he made his voice heard, people were dying. So he found a system that kept people alive and that became the Saviors. That’s really the biggest difference.”
The Walking Dead will return on August 22 with its season 11 premiere.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter @TheMattFowler.