Jeffrey Dean Morgan on Negan's gruesome Dead City cheese grater scene

Dalton Ross
·4 min read
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan on Negan's gruesome Dead City cheese grater scene
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Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Walking Dead: Dead City season 1, episode 3, "People Are a Resource."

We got a pretty clear indication that old-school Negan was back last week on The Walking Dead: Dead City, when the former Saviors leader started belting out knock-knock jokes and raining blood from the sky. But that was against a clear group of villains.

This week, Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character went even further by unleashing hell — not to mention a cheese grater — on an ally.

The scene in question occurred on AMC's July 2 "People Are a Resource" episode when Negan was scouring the kitchen looking for possible weapons for an upcoming attack on the Croat (Željko Ivanek). But then he was confronted by Luther (Michael Anthony), who had found the wanted poster which labeled Negan as "anti-social, prone to extreme violence, above-average intelligence and charisma — do not trust him."

Michael Anthony as Luther, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan - The Walking Dead: Dead City
Michael Anthony as Luther, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan - The Walking Dead: Dead City

Peter Kramer/AMC Michael Anthony and Jeffrey Dean Morgan on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

The towering Luther instructed Negan to leave, and Negan refused, so the big fella blocked his path and repeatedly would not let him pass. After Negan proclaimed that "I really hope this doesn't turn into something it doesn't need to" — yet clearly saw that was exactly the direction things were heading — he flashed that famous grin and then attacked with a frying pan. When that didn't work, he moved on to what proved to be a far more effective weapon — a cheese grater.

Negan not only grated Luther's face in a super disturbing way, but after the victim fell back and impaled himself on a pipe, Negan then squeezed the dying man's head as a punctuation mark. It was a brutal scene, and nobody was more surprised as to the weapon of choice than the man who plays Negan himself.

Michael Anthony as Luther - The Walking Dead: Dead City
Michael Anthony as Luther - The Walking Dead: Dead City

Peter Kramer/AMC Michael Anthony on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

"The face-grating killed me," laughs Morgan. "I was like, 'Really? I'm going to get him with a face-grater?' But this is a guy that's like 6-foot-6, and 200-some-odd-pounds of muscle. You know, Negan is not that guy. But that survival instinct kicks in with 'What can I use to, to fight back?' A cheese grater happened to be at hand, and that gets that guy off of him."

But Morgan is quick to point out that Negan did try to avoid the confrontation before unleashing hell. "There's that whole dance that happens before the cheese grater where I'm trying to step around him. And I warn him a good three, four times — 'Look, I don't want it to go here. It doesn't have to go here. Let's not take it there.' And he is like, 'It's going there.' So Negan again is trying to be that guy that we have known the last couple years and do the right thing. But when it comes down to it, and it's a matter of survival. Negan is Negan, and if it's means pushing him down on that pipe that's coming out of the ground and giving a little smile, there he is!"

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan - The Walking Dead: Dead City
Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan - The Walking Dead: Dead City

Peter Kramer/AMC Jeffrey Dean Morgan on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

There he is, indeed. This now marks two episodes in a row that we have seen flashes of that dangerous and unpredictable villain we first met steeping out of a trailer back on the season 6 finale of The Walking Dead. "He's back, in a way" says Morgan. "I think people were wondering if it was a good idea or not to let that Negan come out again. And I always have been like, 'We have to. It's so important. It's who this character is, and we can't take that away from him.'"

For Morgan, it's just another example of his character doing whatever it takes to complete his objective — no matter how ugly or dirty it gets. "If he wants to live to see tomorrow, and if he wants to actually save Hershel and get to the Croat, he knows what he has to do. A lot of that is putting on that show, and that show is going to be violent and it's going to be ugly, but it'll make y'all laugh because he's always got something funny to say."

Still, Morgan does have one regret about cheese-grating poor Luther's face off.  "Michael, the actor who plays Luther, is really a really good dude, and a really great actor. So I had a lot of fun with him and was kind of disappointed that we killed him so quickly."

Hey, Negan is gonna Negan.

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