Jeffrey Dean Morgan Reveals He Nearly Quit ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ After a Rough Season 2

Few actors have stuck with a single character as long as Jeffrey Dean Morgan has with Negan, a role that’s spanned the original ‘Walking Dead‘ series and now its New York-set spinoff, ‘Dead City.’ That kind of longevity usually comes with its share of creative highs and lows, and Morgan has never been shy about being honest when a season doesn’t land the way he hoped.

Season two of ‘Dead City’ proved to be one of those rockier stretches, with critics and fans alike noting that Negan felt like a diminished version of himself for much of the run. That frustration, it turns out, wasn’t just a fan reaction. Morgan was feeling it too, and far more intensely than anyone realized at the time.

Speaking on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Morgan revealed just how close he came to walking away from the franchise entirely after wrapping season two. “And then I felt like last year we really got bogged down in season two. Negan, especially, from my point of view, all I did was cry, and he’d lost his charisma and everything that made him Negan,” Morgan said on Happy Sad Confused.

That frustration didn’t stay bottled up for long. Morgan revealed he picked up the phone the moment filming wrapped, calling AMC’s Dan McDermott directly from his trailer. “And I called Dan McDermott, who runs AMC, from my trailer after the last day of filming of season two, and I said, ‘I can’t do it like this anymore. And it’s been awesome and thank you and I love you,'” Morgan recalled on Happy Sad Confused.

Rather than accepting the exit, McDermott pushed back and opened the door to a bigger conversation about the show’s direction. “And that started a whole other conversation, ‘Before you run off, Jeff, is there a way we can shift this and make it a show that we all think it can be?'” Morgan said on Happy Sad Confused, describing the moment that ultimately kept him attached to the project.

Morgan confirmed he wasn’t bluffing about walking away, and that co-star Lauren Cohan shared similar concerns about where the show had drifted. “Yeah. And I think Lauren was there also. I was just the first one to call, and I’m really quiet, I don’t often call anybody,” Morgan said on Happy Sad Confused, adding, “If I’m calling, there’s something going on.”

That candid conversation with AMC eventually led to bringing in Seth Hoffman, who Morgan credits with reshaping the show’s direction heading into season three. “And luckily we brought in Seth Hoffman, who I think injected so much,” Morgan said on Happy Sad Confused, explaining that his pitch to Hoffman focused on restoring balance to Negan and Maggie’s dynamic. “The dynamic has to change. There has to be more to it than she wants to kill me and I’m trying to make her not kill me and talk her out of it and save her son.”

What Morgan says he wanted most was simple: the return of the character that made Negan so compelling in the first place. “And then I just wanted Negan back. I wanted his humor and charisma and his smartness back in the show, cause I felt like it just vanished,” Morgan said on Happy Sad Confused.

Whether Hoffman’s creative overhaul has succeeded remains something fans are actively watching unfold in real time this season. Given how close the franchise came to losing one of its most recognizable stars, it’s a reminder of just how fragile even the biggest shows can be behind the scenes.

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