Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who grew up in Kirkland, is known to one audience segment for his role as Denny Duquette on “Grey’s Anatomy” and to another for playing the father of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) on “Supernatural.”
But it’s Morgan’s longest-lasting role as bat-wielding psychopath Negan on “The Walking Dead” that keeps on giving with AMC’s newest spinoff “The Walking Dead: Dead City” (9 p.m. June 18 on AMC).
This time, the series is focused on Negan and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as the pair head to Manhattan. But pump the brakes: Negan viciously murdered Maggie’s husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun) in the seventh season of the original “Walking Dead.” How can these two possibly be a team?
Turns out, Maggie needs Negan to help her rescue her son, Herschel (Logan Kim), who’s been captured in Manhattan by The Croat (Željko Ivanek), who used to be part of Negan’s crew.
Morgan says living in New York he’s reminded daily that viewers still hold a grudge against Negan for killing fan-favorite Glenn.
“Having said that, though, the journey that Negan’s been on and where he finds himself now in ‘Dead City’ is a faraway place from where we first met him,” Morgan says. “In the last couple of years, Negan has really done his best to fit in and find his way in this community. … In the last scene that we saw him in ‘The Walking Dead,’ him not talking for the first time in his life and hearing why [Maggie] can’t forgive him to now her obviously needing something from Negan, it’s just been a full circle.”
And a long way from growing up in Kirkland where Morgan graduated from Lake Washington High School in 1984 (“Home of the Kangaroos, man!” Morgan says).
An injury while playing briefly for Skagit Valley College put an end to Morgan’s hopes for a basketball career.
“I lived on First [Avenue] and Blanchard [in Belltown] for years. All my friends were in bands and I had no musical talent,” he says. “But I did art — graphic art and fine art — and I’d be selling my art at the bars my friends’ bands were playing in.”
(Full disclosure: Morgan’s uncle is Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen.)
Aside from his role as an extra in the filmed-in-Seattle movie “Class of 1999,” Morgan had no acting experience when he helped a friend move to Los Angeles in a rented U-Haul around 1990.
“I met this woman, Eliza Simons, who was a casting director at the time and she thought I should pursue [acting],” Morgan recalls. Soon after, he landed a role in low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman’s 1991 movie “Uncaged.”
“Three weeks after being in L.A. and I remember driving down Hollywood Boulevard in this convertible Cadillac with a camera mounted on the hood. And I was like, ‘I got this [expletive] wired,’ ” Morgan says. “And then I didn’t work for 10 years.”
Modest roles followed, mostly one-off guest spots on TV dramas, until his recurring role in “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2006 as the patient and love interest of Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), a career turning point that led to movies (2009’s ill-fated “Watchmen” adaptation, 2012’s “Red Dawn” remake, 2015’s “Heist” alongside Robert De Niro) and steady gigs on TV, including the lead in Starz’s 2012-13 Miami mob drama “Magic City.”
Alongside his “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Supernatural” characters, it’s his “Walking Dead” role that Morgan is best known for. And he understands some fans may raise their eyebrows at the notion of Maggie and Negan joining forces.
“When this idea was first pitched to me, I was like, ‘Well, that doesn’t make any [expletive] sense at all. How does that work?’ ” Morgan says.
He and co-star Cohan had both been in talks about doing possible individual “Walking Dead” spinoffs, but when the idea of them doing a series together came up, Morgan says the idea “was so out of left field that it immediately became the one that was the most attractive to do because it made the littlest amount of sense.”
Morgan promises “it’s not going to be skipping through the flowers” but instead an exploration of the two characters. When it comes to Negan, Morgan thinks “Dead City” offers his character a course correction.
“He wasn’t necessarily being true to himself towards the end of [‘The Walking Dead’],” Morgan says. “I think he was trying so hard to fit in, genuinely, that after a couple of years back on his own when we find him again, he realizes more who he is. And who he is is a cross between who we first saw and who we last saw. It lays in the middle somewhere. He’s a much more rounded person than the person we saw at the end of ‘The Walking Dead.’ He’s certainly got a lot of his panache back, which is good and bad. It’ll make for good viewing. It’s probably a little rough on Maggie. But for him, it’s survival.”
In addition to his starring role in “Dead City,” which Morgan says if successful could continue for multiple seasons, Morgan will appear in the upcoming fourth season of Prime Video buzz magnet “The Boys,” marking a reunion with “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke, who executive produces the Amazon series.
“My character is still under wraps, but it’s a great character, a lot of fun,” Morgan says. “It’s been a long time, really, since I got to dig into anything besides Negan.”
The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.