Negan Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan Says The Walking Dead Fans Still Swear at Him in the Street for Killing Glenn 10 Years Ago

Jeffrey Dean Morgan says helium inactive gets aggravated fans confronting him implicit the actions of his The Walking Dead villain, Negan, with radical swearing astatine him successful the thoroughfare connected a regular basis.

Negan is 1 of the astir iconic villains successful tv history, joining The Walking Dead astatine the tallness of its popularity backmost successful 2016. In his chilling debut successful the Season 6 finale, Negan confronts the captured Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and the different heroes of the show. Wielding his barbed-wire shot bat, Lucille, Negan brutally kills Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) astatine the commencement of Season 7, cementing his relation arsenic the series’ superior antagonist.

But Negan has go an anti-hero of sorts arsenic 1 of 2 protagonists successful spinoff The Walking Dead: Dead City, which is successful the mediate of Season 3.

A decennary later, Morgan says The Walking Dead fans inactive conflate the histrion with the villain — thing that has gone connected beauteous overmuch since the character’s infamous entrance. Speaking to Josh Horowitz connected the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Morgan discussed the hatred helium gets retired connected the street.

“I inactive get hate,” helium said. “I get radical each the clip that are conscionable furious with the information that I killed Glenn. He was truthful loved. And I ne'er understood however they didn't cognize it was going to happen. Like Glenn was, I thought, a gimme. Abraham was a bonus. But Glenn died successful the comic books, and that had travel retired 4 years prior. And truthful I was benignant of shocked with the magnitude of radical that one, it conscionable sucked the aerial close retired of them, but that conscionable hated Negan and Jeffrey Dean with fervor. With fervor!”

Morgan went connected to picture the astir utmost mentation of this real-world hatred helium received, erstwhile an aged woman started hitting him with her purse and swearing astatine him during an brushwood successful a java store with The Walking Dead co-star Norman Reedus.

“In Georgia, Norman and I would thrust astir motorcycles a batch and we'd spell to assorted places, and I retrieve we had stopped astatine this java spot and we got a coffee,” Morgan recalled. “This aged woman — she was astir apt 80 — she was with her granddaughter who was ace excited to spot Norman and I. But erstwhile she saw me, the older lady, she smacked maine with her purse and started swearing astatine me, similar dropping f-bombs! And it was like, serious. I retrieve Norman was like, ‘We got to go. We got to get the hellhole retired of here. Like this is serious.’

“But I inactive tin locomotion down the thoroughfare successful New York today… we could spell retired close present and someone's going to outcry astatine maine and flip maine off.”

Despite this, Morgan sounds philosophical astir the hatred helium inactive receives for Negan, calling it “hilarious.”

“I've gotten truthful utilized to it present that it's conscionable portion of the deal,” helium said. “If you spell online — I don't anymore — but it's tremendous the magnitude of hatred that Negan has. It's a bully 50/50 split, oregon radical emotion to hatred him.”

Morgan added that determination was a clip erstwhile he’d spell to bat for Negan, defending the quality successful the look of instrumentality hate, but nary more.

“I deliberation there's thing precise absorbing astir Negan,” helium said. “I deliberation taking idiosyncratic that does thing truthful unspeakable successful the show, it's hard to accidental that he's needfully a villain if you interruption down this apocalyptic satellite due to the fact that everybody's murdered somebody.

“But helium came connected the amusement and f***ed with our main cast, and those were the audience's heroes, and killed 2 of them. So I get it, but astatine the aforesaid time, if you're specified a instrumentality of the amusement and this world… but you don't expect radical to deliberation logically and that's not going to happen. And truthful I conscionable benignant of… it’s this present [shrugs].

“I utilized to truly support Negan. And present I’m conscionable like, hey, whatever.”

Elsewhere successful the interview, which is good worthy a ticker if you’re into Morgan’s career, helium talks astir being acceptable to locomotion distant from The Walking Dead aft Season 2 of Dead City due to the fact that helium felt similar the amusement had played retired Negan’s narration with Maggie Greene (Lauren Cohan).

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].