Jeffrey Dean Morgan says his controversial entrance onto 'The Walking Dead' as Negan changed his life

• Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan are starring in a "TWD" spin-off in June, "TWD: Dead City."
• During the Television Critics Association press tour, Morgan was asked about Negan's entry onto "TWD."

More than six years later, Jeffrey Dean Morgan still thinks about his controversial entrance onto "The Walking Dead" in which his character, a brash and bold foul-mouthed Negan, cooly walked out of an RV, lined up a group of survivors and brutally killed two fan-favorites, Abraham and Glenn.

During the Television Critics Association winter press tour panel attended by Insider in Pasadena, California, Morgan was asked how that moment on the series has resonated through playing the character since 2016 and on the upcoming Negan and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) spin-off, "The Walking Dead: Dead City," set to premiere on AMC and AMC+ in June.

Morgan, who has been asked about this sore spot on "TWD" for years, gave a long, thoughtful response Tuesday morning about how he never expected to play Negan this long and how he still continues to "get shit" for the way in which he killed Glenn.

"The great thing about Negan in this role, for me, is how much he's changed from that day that he walked out of the RV," Morgan said, referring to the season six finale and season seven premiere of "TWD." "I didn't think, one, that I would still be here in part of this world."

During the panel, AMC president Dan McDermott talked about the spin-off and revealed the unlikely duo of Negan and Maggie will work together to track down Maggie and Glenn's kidnapped son, Hershel, an original story that doesn't take place in Robert Kirkman's "TWD" comics.

Both Morgan and Cohan serve as executive producers alongside "TWD" universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple and showrunner Eli Jornè.

McDermott told press that "Dead City" will feature "the country's largest herd of zombies" and will include landmarks ranging from the Statue of Liberty to the Lincoln Tunnel and the Empire State Building.

"Scott, Eli, and the other writers, what they have done is they have really fleshed out a character that lived beyond the comic books. And that was a tricky thing to do with Negan," Morgan said of the new series. "We only really see one side of him with what Kirkman has done, and that's the 'RV clearing' Negan that we have seen."

Though Glenn's death was a straight adaptation from the comics, the scene didn't play out well with critics and viewers. Many fans and media outlets referred to the death as "torture porn" and the episode is often cited as driving viewers away from the series.

Of his controversial entrance onto the show, Morgan said, "It changed my life. That one scene changed my life, literally, in so many ways. And I still get shit for it."

"I live in New York and so I walk down those streets, and the people that are there remind me daily that Glenn was their favorite character," Morgan added to a laugh from the crowd.

Morgan previously told Insider he "wouldn't have killed Glenn" if he could redo anything with Negan on "TWD."

"Having said that, though, the journey that Negan's been on and where he finds himself now in 'Dead City' is a faraway place from where we first met him," Morgan told the TCA crowd.

When we last saw Negan, he asked Maggie if she could ever forgive him for killing her husband years ago.

In one of the finale's best scenes, Maggie said she couldn't, but added that he was welcome to live in their community if he and his wife Annie wished to stay, having earned their place.

But that doesn't mean the old Negan fans met years ago is totally vanquished on the spin-off.

"And yet, God, there's still that guy," Morgan continued, hinting there may still be a bit of Negan's darker side to him despite the character's growth on the past few seasons of "TWD."

"In the last couple of years, Negan has really done his best to fit in and find his way in this community. And now, when we find him, it's everything," he continued. "It's all that we've seen of him from 'Here's Negan' and why he became this guy, to that scene in the clearing, to this relationship with Maggie."

Morgan added: "In the last scene that we saw him in 'The Walking Dead,' him not talking for the first time in his life and hearing why she can't forgive him, to now her obviously needing something from Negan — It's just been full circle, is what I can really say," Morgan said. "But that day — That first scene changed my life, truly. A thrill to still be here."