Who Plays Negan In 'The Walking Dead'? 6 Movies & Shows To See Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Grey’s Anatomy is where I first met Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He appeared as Denny Duquette in the third, fourth, and fifth seasons, but more on that last one in a second. In those first two seasons, Denny came to the then Seattle Grace Hospital for a heart transplant. When he returned with heart failure, he was given an LVAD wire to extend his chances of getting the transplant. [SPOILER!] Unfortunately, he received the transplant but died from a clot afterward. 

In all of that time in and out of the hospital, he strikes up a relationship with his doctor, Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl). This is one of those Grey’s Anatomy deaths and romances that I’ll never get over. I can still hear Heigl’s delivery of “What about me? What about me when you go to the light?” I can still see Morgan’s face when she says it. It’s just devastating, and I’ve even come more around to Morgan’s return as a ghost in Season 5. Yep, that happened!

There’s a great chance that if you’re a fan of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s work, it’s because Supernatural introduced him to you as John Winchester, the father of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles). In retrospect, Morgan only appears in 13 of the show’s 327 episodes across 15 seasons. Still, John’s presence, or lack thereof, looms large over the brothers.

I was always in and out of Supernatural over the years, but even I remember the anticipation and fanfare around the show’s milestone 300th episode. In it, Morgan reprised his role as John and reunited with his wife Mary (Samantha Smith) and their sons. I tuned in for it despite being behind because I knew it would be one to watch. As it turns out, John and Mary’s complicated, legendary, monster-fighting relationship even launched one of my most underrated shows on The CW, the one-season prequel series, The Winchesters (2022).

One of my favorite things about being a Jeffrey Dean Morgan fan is that he tends to play charming characters, villains or not. He also never sticks to one genre, so it’s always exciting to see him step into different worlds. One of which is TV’s tried-and-true legal drama. After making such a splash on TV’s longest-running medical drama, it’s no wonder Morgan also appeared on one of TV’s most talked-about legal dramas, The Good Wife. 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan only appears as a series regular in the show’s seventh and final season, but he’s still great in it. Morgan plays Jason Crouse, a freelance private investigator who eventually has a romantic relationship with Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). However, their relationship status after the show remains a mystery because The Good Wife’s series finale doesn’t definitively answer that question.

Rampage is another wild addition to the monster movie catalog. It stars Dwayne Johnson as Davis Okoye, who rescued an albino gorilla and named him George. Things take a more dramatic turn when a pathogen from space causes animals to mutate and grow... a lot. It doesn’t help that the movie is, for some reason, set in Chicago, so there’s not much space.

Not to mention, George isn’t the only super-sized animal. There’s also a massive wolf and crocodile. Regardless, George, a kind animal that has a real friendship with Davis, becomes the target of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s lawman, Agent Harvey Russell. It’s his job to clean up the literal mess, and he does so with a charm that doesn’t necessarily disguise his inability to lead with empathy when it comes to the animals. Morgan holds his own opposite Johnson, even when they share a scene mid-air after falling out of an airplane. This movie is wild!

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has spent time in and around superhero properties for a significant portion of his career. For instance, he played The Comedian in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009). He also played Joe Kessler, an old friend of Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), in the final two seasons of The Boys (2019).

All of which proves that Morgan gravitates to darker, edgier superhero narratives, so it’s no wonder that he also stars in Invincible. He’s only been in five episodes so far, starting at the end of Season 3. In the show, he plays Conquest, a very old, very irredeemable supervillain. Then again, Jeffrey Dean Morgan tends to thrive at playing interesting villains. Invincible proves that his talents even extend to the animated ones. 

I couldn’t write about Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s work without writing about one of the latest and best additions to his filmography. He has a minor supporting role in Prime Video’s new series Sterling Point from Megan Park. In that sense, this role is similar to a lot of Morgan’s work. He knows how to leave an impression. In this, Morgan plays Joe, Ellis’s (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie) dad, who owns the marina on the fictional island in Canada’s very real Muskoka.

Joe has a complicated history with Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle), Annie (Ella Rubin), and Connor’s (Keen Ruffalo) mom, who passed away giving birth to Ramona. There’s a lot of weight on Joe’s shoulders because of the choices he made, and the ones he didn’t. Morgan navigates that thorny intersection of the past and present with a vulnerability that gives the character depth.