Is The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln losing his cool?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has made quite the entrance in The Walking Dead since he arrived on the scene in the final episode of series 6. In a video interview with Entertainment Weekly, Morgan reveals that playing Negan is a hell of a lot of fun, but it also requires him to take a bit of his character beyond what you see on screen… and Andrew Lincoln is struggling to keep it together.

If you think that Andrew Lincoln is delivering a pretty impressive performance so far over the first few episodes of series 7, well Morgan discloses that there is a good reason for this. Not just content with popping skulls on screen, Morgan says that he is actively hoping for a response from Lincoln, both on and off screen it seems.

Lincoln is known to take his role as Rick seriously, so Morgan is enjoying watching Lincoln’s reaction between takes. Morgan says, ‘I know I’m doing my job the more mad Andy Lincoln gets. So if off-camera he’s screaming and swearing in between takes, I know me and Negan are doing our job and I’ve gotten him pretty riled up.’ It sounds a little like Lincoln needs to take a chill pill, but perhaps they’re in short supply in the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead.

But Jeffrey Dean Morgan also hints that Lincoln isn’t all rage behind the scenes. Morgan isn’t one of those kind of actors who feels the need to segregate himself from the members of the cast who play Negan’s victims. Instead it sounds like the cast of The Walking Dead are fairly happy, despite all the gruelling stuff they have to film for each and every episode.

Morgan claims that although he knows that Lincoln’s outbursts mean Negan is doing his job, it’s still important for the actors to basically hug it out after a scene, saying ‘and then of course we have to go and apologize and get back to being friends after takes, but it’s been intense. And that is fun.’

Fun indeed. And Morgan doesn’t stop there. It’s clear on screen that he is having a ball with the character, but he also spells it out in the interview. He calls The Walking Dead a ‘hell of a place to work’ with  an amazing cast and crew. Even if he is causing poor old Andrew Lincoln to scream and swear between takes, he says that everyone who works on the show ‘are kind of this huge family, and thankfully they’ve embraced me’.

Well if they’ve embraced him too openly, then maybe he needs to do his job better. Who wants to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan go a little method and start sending Andrew Lincoln bits of brain in the mail? Now that really would amp up the performances each week!