The Canneseries premiere of “The Walking Dead: Dead City” was a special one for its star, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The actor, who left his handprints on the Cannes Walk of Fame, was accompanied by actor wife Hilarie Burton and their two children, calling the experience “an incredible honor.” Speaking with Variety after the trip, the actor gushed about his families — his real-life one, and the one he made while working on the world of “The Walking Dead.”
“The Walk of Fame thing was huge,” he adds. “To have my family there made it even more special. I love my kids and my wife so much. My wife had never been to Cannes; my daughter had never walked a carpet in her life, and, boy, she took to it like a fish to water. Both my kids did. I was convinced after day one that [my son] Gus was going to walk away with a multi-picture deal from Paramount, he was just so cool.”
“The Walking Dead: Dead City” is the first sequel to “The Walking Dead” and the fifth series in the franchise. It follows Dean’s fan-favorite anti-hero Negan and his archnemesis Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as they travel into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan long cut off from the mainland. The latest season follows the escalation of the war to take over New York, with the leading duo battling on opposite sides.
Asked about how it feels to be heading into his tenth year playing Negan and his plans to continue doing so in the near future, Morgan says it’s “nuts.” “This has been part of my life for so long now that I don’t ever picture it ending unless I finally say I’m too old to do this anymore, which I am getting dangerously close to. It’s interesting, especially doing this spinoff with two characters who want to kill each other 90% of the time, because I had never heard of this being a workable concept before. Yet, here we are, with season two coming out and talking about doing more. We’ll see.”
The actor, who joined “The Walking Dead” in the iconic Season 6 finale, originally believed he would only play the character for four years, but the creative team kept “enticing” him back with new angles and storylines. His first appearance saw the actor join a moving train, whereas he is now the conductor of his spin-off, ushering new talent in, such as Dascha Polanco and Gaius Charles.
“I don’t know if I’m a conductor,” he humbly responds. “But it feels like I am one of the veterans now. I feel like I’ve earned my stripes. 10 years is a long time. This is not an easy show to do in any way, mentally and certainly physically, so I’m amazed by the fact that I’m still able to pull off my part of it.”
Courtesy of AMC
Morgan, who signs as an executive producer alongside Cohan, says the creative role is “his favorite part.” “Especially making decisions on the cast and crew, because that is your family. This is who I’m going to spend half the year with, every single day, for 14 hours a day, so you want to find people that you love, because we don’t want any as assholes on the show. ‘The Walking Dead’ has always been really good at picking great people. These are people who are all still my friends, even if they’re no longer alive on the show, and I can’t say that about a lot of other jobs I’ve had.”
There is also the timeliness of “Dead City,” which broaches discussions of greed, the fight for resources, energy as currency, and the exclusionary nature of privilege. This connection with not only the zeitgeist but the existential is a quality of the whole franchise, says Morgan. “The show has never been about zombies or walkers. It’s always been about people.”
The actor goes on to recall how “The Walking Dead” writer and producer Scott M. Gimple recently told him that Robert Kirkman originally wrote the series with slow walkers because they are “defeatable.” “It shouldn’t be a huge pain to kill slow walking walkers. But in order to defeat them, you have to work together, and the problem is that people don’t have the ability to work together, and that is really the series, and every iteration of ‘The Walking Dead’ is about the fact that people can’t get along. It’s a good conversation starter.”
And for long-standing fans of the universe, “Dead City” brings a special treat: the return of Negan’s infamous weapon, Lucille. The bat wrapped in barbed wire is back in a new iteration, informing much of Negan’s journey in the Season 2.
“I knew she’d be back a year before we started shooting, and I was excited,” recalls Morgan. “I’m not a prop actor. I know some actors [whose props] inform their whole character, and I had never had a prop like that until I met Lucille. I completely understand it now. To have her back in my hands was more important to me, Jeff, than it was even to Negan. Negan is a little bit thrown off having Lucille back in his life. Jeff was fucking thrilled. I loved it. I don’t let the prop guys take her from me. She goes to my trailer with me, she goes to craft services with me. I keep her with me all day long and don’t let people play with her,” he laughs.
Morgan sees Negan’s relationship to his weapon as one of “love and hate,” because its return also signals the return of the “performative” Negan we first meet in the show. “There’s a lot of battling going on within Negan, and Lucille has a great deal to do with that. I think she represents so much to him, but when he burned her in ‘Here’s Negan,’ that was him trying to get rid of a part of his life, and now that is going to come roaring back into his world. A lot of this season is Negan figuring out how to deal with that.”
“The Walking Dead: Dead City” Season 2 premieres May 4, 2025, only on AMC and AMC+. Jorné serves as showrunner and executive producer on the series, which is overseen by Gimple. Cohan and Morgan also serve as executive producers, along with Brian Bockrath.
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