Jeffrey Dean Morgan has revealed that he tried to get one of his lines removed in The Walking Dead season 11 premiere. Spoilers ahead!
In the episode, Negan suspects Lauren Cohan's Maggie has taken him down to the metro tunnels to kill him. Negan declares he won't let her put him "down like a dog, like Glenn was." Glenn was Maggie's husband – and was brutally murdered by Negan and his barbed wire baseball bat back in season 7.
"I fought it! That's the one line that I immediately called [showrunner Angela Kang] and I was like, 'I can't say it. I can't fucking bring up Glenn's name here,'" Morgan told Entertainment Weekly. "And I was like, 'Any goodwill that Negan has gotten on his side is going to go out the window the minute I say Glenn.' I tried to nix the line completely. I didn't think it was necessary. And I thought, for sure, they would let me change it."
He added: "And so I filmed it three or four different ways. I tried everything else. I said, 'Your husband' and other stuff. But ultimately it was like, 'Well, let's just try the fucking Glenn line.' And then, of course, when I saw the cut, I was like, 'Oh, fuckers!' [Laughs] They had to put it in."
Negan has been going through a redemption arc in recent years, but it seems he's just taken a major step backwards. While Maggie was struggling to climb up onto a train cart and get away from the walkers grasping at her, she called up for help from Negan. He looked down at her, then walked away, and the episode ended with Maggie's fate left unknown.
The Walking Dead season 11 continues on AMC now, and if you're in the UK, you can catch new episodes on Disney Plus Star the day after they air in the US. While you wait for the next installment, check out our roundup of the best shows on Disney Plus to fill out your watchlist.
