Now, with the return of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 finally making its way to the small screen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan discusses Negan’s long journey on the iconic AMC series as well as its spin-off, revealing that the beloved character could hang up his boots sooner rather than later.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan Thinks That Negan’s Time on The Walking Dead Is Getting Close To Ending

Talking to Variety, 59-year-old Jeffrey Dean Morgan said that he is approaching 10 years in the franchise, stating that he “feels like I am one of the veterans now,” alongside Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Danai Gurira (Michonne), Lauren Cohan (Maggie), Melissa McBride (Carol), and Norman Reedus (Daryl). While gushing about getting his handprints on the Cannes Walk of Fame, which he describes as “an incredible honor,” Morgan was asked how it felt to be heading into his tenth year playing Negan in The Walking Dead universe and what his future plans for the iconic character were. Morgan said that TWD has been a huge part of his life for such a long time that he couldn’t envision himself saying goodbye to Negan but did acknowledge that he wasn’t getting any younger and he was now “getting dangerously close” to the moment where he’d hang his boots up.

“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.”

Morgan goes on to recall that writer and producer of The Walking Dead, Scott M. Gimple, 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.”

However, Morgan very nearly wasn’t cast as Negan. Matthew Lillard, who has appeared in a total of six Scream movies and is set to return in Scream 7, was once almost cast as the villainous character. Apparently, Robert Kirkman liked the idea of the Scream actor taking on the role of Negan so much that he later admitted that when he later saw Morgan’s face on merch for the series, he still thought that Lillard’s face should have been there.