Andrew Lincoln and Jeffrey Dean Morgan Talk Welcoming Negan to ‘The Walking Dead’ Family

The Walking Dead gang is one of the friendliest and tightest-knit casts on television, and, happily for Jeffrey Dean Morgan, his co-stars extended those good vibes even to the man who was coming in to kill one — or more — of them.

TWD stars Andrew Lincoln and Morgan visited the Yahoo TV studio at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, where Morgan shared how he first learned about the potential role on the show without knowing exactly who he might be playing.

“They’re like, ‘Ah, it’s a secret, we can’t tell you,’” Morgan said, though, as a TWD fan who knows the comic book stories and characters, he guessed the character was Negan.

“I’m like, ‘It’s gotta be Negan… it’s gotta be. And if it is, we’re gonna do it.’”

Related: ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7 Trailer: All the Negan Victim Hints We Found and Introducing Ezekiel

Morgan, who was filming his stint as Jason Crouse on the final season of The Good Wife when he joined The Walking Dead cast, said he was initially a bit worried his new cohorts wouldn’t want to befriend him, again, given that his character means at least one of them loses his or her job thanks to Negan’s deadly bat.

“They have [befriended him], and it’s led by this man,” Morgan said, pointing to Lincoln. “He’s the head of the snake of this family… and they’ve actually embraced me off camera.”

Lincoln said he wondered about his new on-screen foe, too, but a “wave of swooning” and an official seal of approval from the show’s makeup team — “He’s one of us already,” they told Lincoln — had him prepared for his own first impression of JDM: “Oh, he’s really lovely.”

Related: Norman Reedus on His New Restaurant and ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7 Premiere

The two co-stars and pals also discussed how it’s getting easier to deal with the constant barrage of questions about the Season 6 finale cliffhanger, and said they’ve come to have a whole new appreciation for that cliffhanger.

“It’s more about [Negan] than the death,” Lincoln said. “It’s the breakdown of a man, but it’s also, ‘There’s a new kid on the block.’ And if we had the death, it maybe would have trumped [Negan’s] entrance.”

Lincoln and Morgan also played a fun round of “couples therapy,” in which Negan shared his feelings about Rick’s group blowing up the Saviors and their motorcycles. Drs. Drew and Phil would be proud.

The Walking Dead Season 7 premieres on Oct. 23 at 9 p.m. on AMC.