Jeffrey Dean Morgan Still Gets Glenn Grief for Playing Negan

The hostility has followed Morgan for a decade

Jeffrey Dean Morgan says he still encounters people who are furious about Negan killing Glenn in The Walking Dead. During a Happy Sad Confused interview with Josh Horowitz, the actor said the reaction has followed him since Negan’s grisly arrival.

“I still get hate,” Morgan said. “I get people all the time that are just furious with the fact that I killed Glenn. He was so loved.” Negan confronted Rick Grimes and the show’s other central characters in the Season 6 finale before killing Abraham Ford and Glenn Rhee at the beginning of Season 7.

Morgan also recalled stopping at a coffee shop in Georgia with co-star Norman Reedus, where an elderly woman he described as probably 80 allegedly hit him with her purse and began swearing. According to Morgan, Reedus decided they needed to leave because the encounter had become serious.

The actor says milder versions continue in New York, where people shout at him or make angry gestures. Morgan now calls the response “hilarious” and treats it as part of playing a character who made one of television’s least subtle first impressions.

Morgan understands why Glenn’s death stuck

Morgan believes fans reacted so strongly because Negan attacked the characters they had followed as heroes. He said viewers hated both Negan and “Jeffrey Dean” with “fervor” after the episode aired, despite Glenn’s death having already happened in the comic books.

He admitted he had expected Glenn to be the obvious victim because that storyline was already known, while describing Abraham’s death as an additional shock. The response still surprised him because the scene “sucked the air” out of so many viewers.

Morgan also sees more ambiguity in Negan than the audience initially did. He argued that almost everyone in The Walking Dead’s apocalyptic world has killed someone, but acknowledged that Negan’s defining offence was attacking the show’s established heroes and killing two of them. Fans may accept complicated villains; forgiving them is apparently a separate subscription.

He no longer feels obliged to defend Negan

Morgan says he has stopped trying to persuade viewers that Negan deserves a more sympathetic reading. Although he still finds the character interesting, years of arguments have left him comfortable answering the criticism with “hey, whatever.”

He has also grown used to the split between people who hate Negan and those who enjoy hating him. Morgan said he no longer goes online to examine the reaction, describing the division as roughly “50/50.”

Morgan continues to portray Negan in The Walking Dead: Dead City, where the character shares the story with Maggie Greene. He also said he had been ready to walk away after the spin-off’s second season because he felt Negan’s relationship with Maggie had been played out, although the series is now in its third season.