Henry Rollins auditioned to play Negan on AMC’s The Walking Dead

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Although many fans of The Walking Dead weren't that thrilled with the sixth season of the AMC series, most were happy with the casting of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan. The character's appearance in the comics is based on former Black Flag frontman and actor Henry Rollins, who recently told Forbes that he was actually up for the role of the bat-wielding villain.

Since I didn’t get the part I can tell you this. I was up for the role of Negan because Charlie Adlard, who worked on the comic book, based that guy on me and so I was a shoo-in for an audition. The internet was wild with speculation because in the upcoming season they were going to introduce the character. A woman that works in my office put my name and the character’s name into an internet search and all this speculation came up. I went for the audition and there were five pages of really cool dialogue with all these curses and it was beautiful, but I didn’t get it. I later saw a photograph of the guy who did get it and he looks almost exactly like the comic book rendering. The woman at my office watched the episode where he turns up, the dialogue that I auditioned with was in the show and she said, ‘It should have been you.’ Obviously it wasn’t or this conversation would be very different but that happened. I had to sign one of those documents where you can’t talk about it but now it’s over and done with… so yeah, I was up for that part. I get great auditions, I auditioned for stuff like Narcos too, but rarely does anything come my way. What usually comes my way is a no audition thing like The Last Heist or He Never Died that the film’s writer, Jason Krawczyk, wrote with me in mind.

I wonder if Rollins feels a bit like Lewis Black, who once auditioned to play a character based on himself in a sitcom pilot, but didn't get the part. Personally I have nothing against Rollins, and he's a decent enough actor, however I think Morgan is going to do a fantastic job with the role.

The Walking Dead will return to AMC for its seventh season in October.