Jeffrey Dean Morgan is itching for his ‘Walking Dead’ Negan debut

The folks at “The Walking Dead” ended this season by teasing the arrival of uber-villain Negan, a terrifying presence in the comic books who will be brought to life by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. And to hear the actor tell it, he cannot wait. “I’m prepping for some hate mail,” he said at a “Supernatural” fan convention this week. “I think the challenge for me in this role is going to be, is there any heart in Negan? For me, I look at that as a challenge as an actor, and that’s the kind of thing that I embrace and really look forward to.”

For the record, Morgan — a “Walking Dead” fan — didn’t take a lot of convincing to sign on. “When my agent/manager called they said, ‘You’ve been offered this thing on ‘The Walking Dead,'” he remembers. “It’s to play this big bad.’ At the time, they didn’t know the character’s name because I think it was supposed to be a secret. And I’m like, ‘Is it f—ing Negan?’ And they’re like, ‘I don’t know, we’re going to have to call you back, hold on a second.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s f—ing Negan. And I’m f—ing doing it.'”

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