Who Plays Negan In The Walking Dead? 10 Movies & Shows To See Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is back playing Negan in The Walking Dead: Dead City, but he has a long history of other projects you need to see.
The arrival of Negan on The Walking Dead became one of the most talked-about moments on television. One of the biggest villains of the comic upon which the show was based, the character arrived swinging as he brutally murdered two key characters. Despite these horrific actions, Negan is a charismatic man, and so somehow he became a fan favourite who is currently co-lead in the aforementioned spin-off series, Dead City.
A key factor of Negan's popularity is the work of the actor playing him, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Although the actor has now played the part of Negan for so long that audiences have started to confuse Morgan and his alter-ego, the star has been solidly working in TV and films since the early ‘90s. Along the way, he has played several iconic characters across a variety of fandoms, walking the line between both lovable and despicable.
If you’re new to the man behind Negan, we’ve created a handy guide to films and TV shows featuring him at his absolute best.
Readers of The Walking Dead comics were excited to have Negan join the show, a role that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is now synonymous with.
The character, although brutal in his actions, has a swagger and bravado that makes him the perfect villain. The fact that his arrival marked the death of an original character stung, but that death was needed to incite change in the group, particularly Maggie. Although originally the bad guy, Negan ultimately sided with the core characters to take down the maniacal Whisperers and formed an uneasy alliance with Maggie.
With The Walking Dead now over, Negan can be found in Dead City, where, after being enlisted by the distrustful Maggie to help get back her kidnapped child, he currently roams the streets of Manhattan.
After Negan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s next most well-known role in television is that of John Winchester in Supernatural.
Although an integral character to the Supernatural lore, Morgan only appeared in 13 of the 327 episodes. In the first season, it was the disappearance of Morgan’s character that spurred his sons, Dean and Sam, into action. Believing that their father had finally tracked down the demon that killed their mother, the brothers travelled across America, hunting monsters and helping people, as they followed clues to John’s location.
The character's ability to feel so present despite actually being in barely any episodes is a testament to how impactful a performer Morgan really is.
John Winchester is not the only popular father figure in Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s filmography. He also has an uncredited appearance in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, as Thomas Wayne, who is, of course, Bruce Wayne, AKA Batman’s, father.
Morgan appeared in the obligatory Batman movie flashback, which details his parents' brutal murder. Incidentally, in this scene, Bruce’s mother, Martha, is played by Morgan’s The Walking Dead co-star, Lauren Cohan. Upon the film's release, her character Maggie was extremely anti-Negan, so seeing the actors play a loved-up couple caused a few heads to explode.
In addition to being a familiar face that pops up across a multitude of fandoms, Jeffrey Dean Morgan also has a very recognisable voice. He puts those vocals to great use in a six-episode arc in the uber-violent animated series Invincible.
The show is essentially a perversion of the DC universe, set around an in-universe controversial variant of Superman (Nolan) and his son (Mark). Morgan appeared in the series as Conquest, an adversary sent to Earth to find and fight Mark, resulting in an epic battle.
When Eric Kripke, creator of Supernatural, began work on his adaptation of The Boys, fans wondered if they might see any familiar faces from his previous show. The answer was quickly revealed to be 'yes', as Jim Beaver (Bobby) appeared in the first season. Throughout subsequent seasons, Kripke managed to draft in almost all of the key players in Supernatural, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan no exception.
Morgan appeared in the fourth season of the depraved superhero series, playing Joe Kessler, a former acquaintance of Billy Butcher.
In The Boys, Jeffrey Dean Morgan spent his time almost exclusively with Karl Urban, but his filmography has seen him work with others from the show, too. In Neighbourhood Watch, he stars opposite Jack Quaid (who played Hughie on The Boys) as one of two men drawn into investigating the abduction of a young woman.
Morgan’s role, Ed, is more subdued than those that have become his calling card, but the noir-esque movie and its exploration of sensitive subjects such as men’s mental health make it well worth seeking out.
Just like his role on Supernatural, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s presence was felt on Grey’s Anatomy long after his character Denny departed.
Appearing in 23 episodes, Denny arrived at Seattle Grace Hospital in need of a heart transplant. As a patient, he won the heart of surgical intern Dr Izzie Stevens, who went to great lengths to secure him a transplant, only for him to die shortly after. The character returned a couple of seasons after his death as a hallucination - a symptom of Izzie’s brain tumour.
Denny enabled Morgan to show his more loving side, making an army of viewers swoon over him just like Izzie.
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After winning hearts with his Grey’s Anatomy role, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was sure to follow it with a truly reprehensible character when he signed up to play Comedian in the 2009 film Watchmen.
The death of his character is the catalyst for the main characters to unite as they try to work out the identity of his killer, but through the use of flashbacks, his true nihilistic intentions are made clear.
It is his dealings with Silk Spectre II that hold his worst traits, and there’s something about seeing Morgan in this role that makes the audience feel unclean.
Throughout his career, Jeffrey Dean Morgan has racked up several horror movie credits. One of his biggest, The Resident, saw him star alongside Oscar winner Hilary Swank.
He played Swank’s landlord, a man who had a disturbing interest in his new tenant. A horribly chilling movie, the horror within The Resident comes not from a ghost or demon, but from the much more terrifying threat of man. The scenario that unfolds could easily have been lifted from a Netflix true crime documentary, and its real-world parallels just make it more distressing.
Released in 2010, action thriller The Losers placed Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the leader of an elite US Special Forces Unit. After the group, which also features a pre-Captain America Chris Evans and the mighty Idris Elba, is betrayed by their handler, Max, they do everything in their power to get revenge.
Morgan’s role of Clay is yet another smooth operator, and the whole film, which is based on a comic series of the same name, is essentially The A-Team dialled to 100. Although a super fun film, a sequel sadly never materialised, most likely due to half the cast getting scooped into the Marvel machine.
