SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the season 2 opener of The Walking Dead: Dead City on AMC.
AMC’s starry sequel featuring Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Negan) and Lauren Cohan (Maggie) returned Sunday with more tales about post-apocalyptic Manhattan, where two factions are fighting for control of the island. Maggie and Negan are trapped on opposite sides.
Here, Morgan — who is joined in season 2 by Gaius Charles, Željko Ivanek, Mahina Anne Marie Napoleon, Lisa Emery, Logan Kim, Dascha Polanco and Kim Coates — explains Negan’s state of mind and whether he actually approves of Lucille 2.0.
DEADLINE The real world is kind of crappy right now, so I’m curious, does working in this make-believe crappy world feel like an escape for you?
JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN A little bit, yeah. One of the reasons I became an actor was to escape some real life stuff. And certainly the world of The Walking Dead has always been a good kind of escapism, not just for us as actors, but I think for our audience, as well. The only problem I ever have with working is being away from my family. But it’s kind of the deal. Most of my family is used to it. My daughter isn’t, and she just wants to be with dad all the time. But yeah, I mean, I think I have used acting as a way to escape all sorts of stuff through the years, and certainly now is no different.
DEADLINE How would you describe Negan’s state of mind going into this season? Is he resigned? Where’s he at?
MORGAN I don’t know that Negan has ever felt resigned, but I think he’s in a place that we’ve never seen him before. I’ve been saying this about Negan for years. He’s a chess player and he’s always a move or two ahead of everyone. And I think for the first time that I can remember, he’s in a place where he’s not a move or two ahead. In fact, he’s losing the game. So it’s a dark spot. Everywhere he turns, he’s having to do something that he doesn’t necessarily want to do, he doesn’t believe in, and he is looking for an out, and they’ve kind of got him under their thumb right now. So he’s going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get back involved in the game again.
I think he’s just been in a spot where he hasn’t figured it out and it keeps getting worse. It’s a little bit of a pile-on for Negan. So that was interesting. That was fun to play, kind of not seeing the end game. I mean, we had a little bit of that in season nine, I believe, when I was in jail and asking Maggie to kill me at a certain point. I think this is the lowest that Negan’s ever gotten. He’s not that low now because he’s still trying to figure out how he can get out of here, how he can fix his life, whatever that may be.
DEADLINE The way that you drop Lucille toward the end of the episode makes it seem like you think all of this is kind of bullshit.
MORGAN Yeah. It got cut out, and I don’t know why, but I threw the bat across the cell because he’s been working for years to get away from that Negan, to not be the head cracking guy. Lucille and the leather coat, all that stuff reminds him of that Negan. He’s been working hard to be someone else or get away from it least, that part of who he had to become during the apocalypse. Now these people are blackmailing him into becoming that guy again, and he’s fighting it. At the end of the first season, you see him trying to be someone else and move away from that part of his life. Here he is being asked and blackmailed to be the guy that he doesn’t want to be, which is a cool thing to have to play.
DEADLINE So he is not that impressed with the new and improved Lucille, then?
MORGAN No, I don’t think he is. I think he had a special relationship with the first bat for a lot of reasons having to do with his ex-wife Lucille. This bat wasn’t his creation, and it was a gift from The Croat [Ivanek], Lucille 2.0. But I don’t think he ever refers to her as Lucille. I mean, there’s a certain point that he has to use her, I guess, but it’s not the same as it was.
DEADLINE Where did you shoot that cool scene in the church?
MORGAN That’s St. Jean Baptiste Church in Lowell, Massachusetts. It’s where Jack Kerouac had his funeral. It’s been closed for years and is in a state of disrepair. I sure hope they decide to fix it. And I think the Kerouac Foundation is trying to raise money to fix it. It’s an amazing church. It’s beautiful. I love that bit of trivia. It was a beautiful place to shoot
DEADLINE Kim Coate’s character, The Bruegel, doesn’t seem like the warm and fuzziest kind of guy. Will you go mano e mano with him later?
MORGAN Yeah, we go a little mano e mano, for sure. Toward the end of the season things get a little tough between the two of us. But Kim Coates in general is one of the most special people I’ve ever known in my life. I’ve known him for a long time, and to finally have the opportunity to work with him … I love watching him do his thing. I think the biggest problem that I had was I maybe enjoyed watching him too much and I would forget that I have to be Negan. I’d be giggling at Kim putting on this performance. That was amazing. But yeah, Bruegel and Negan don’t get along with a lot of people this season.
DEADLINE Can you say if we’ll see Negan’s wife and kid this season?
MORGAN We talk about them and they’re definitely part of the story. I’ll tell you that.
DEADLINE Is it going to take a while before we see you reunite with Maggie?
MORGAN You will see us reunite [in episode 4].
DEADLINE Is there any action or big death scene that you’re looking forward to fans seeing that’s coming up?
MORGAN Yeah, and we also have some fake outs, too. By the end of the season, things are going to come to a head and there’s going to be some carnage and people will die.
DEADLINE Destination X finally debuts this month on NBC. What itch did this scratch for you?
MORGAN The person who really wanted me to do it was my wife. She was like, you will love it. Somehow she thinks I’m this people person and it would be a really fun fit for me. And it was actually, I had a blast. I thought the concept was cool. I watched the original Danish series, though I didn’t know how it would work. It made more sense, I think, for the Danish version. But I had some really great writers who got my voice in their head. I got to be me, which is kind of a snarky, smart-ass fella. We had an exceptional cast. I don’t know how they found these people, but they did. I really liked messing with them. For me, that’s always a good time.
The post ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan Talks Lucille 2.0 & Negan’s Latest Struggle: “He’s Having To Do Something He Doesn’t Want” appeared first on Deadline.
