Negans Glenn Line In Walking Dead Season 11 Premiere Was Disgusting Says Star

Lauren Cohan opens up about the line Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan delivers about Maggie's dead husband Glenn in The Walking Dead season 11 premiere.

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The Walking Dead season 11, episode 1 "Acheron: Part 1"

Lauren Cohan opens up about the line Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan delivers about Maggie's dead husband Glenn in The Walking Dead season 11 premiere. The series is based on Robert Kirkman's graphic novels of the same name in which a group of survivors fight to live in a zombie apocalypse the south and east coasts of the United States. The Walking Dead has been a hit for AMC since premiering in 2010, spawning two aired spin-offs as well as two in-development ones and three theatrical films centered on Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes.

The Walking Dead season 11 adapts the final issues of the graphic novel series as the main survivors of the show encounter the Commonwealth, a large network of communities that has advanced equipment and almost 50 thousand survivors living in their various settlements. The premiere of the final season, entitled "Acheron: Part 1," saw Maggie and Negan still attempting to rebuild Alexandria by heading on a journey to the former's old D.C. settlement while also still suspicious of the other's intentions in working with each other. One such moment saw Maggie seemingly bring Negan down to zombie-infested subway tunnels to kill him, with the latter arguing he won't allow her to put him down like a dog "like Glenn was," a line that has ruffled many feathers including the actors themselves.

On the heels of the episode's debut, Cohan spoke with Entertainment Weekly to discuss The Walking Dead season 11 premiere. In looking specifically at Negan's line about Glenn, Cohan called it "disgusting" upon reading it in the script though described the creative perspective of its existence in the scene. See what Cohan said below:

"When I read that, I thought it was just pathetic for Negan to do that. It's this boiling point, and she's doing everything in her power to not give in to the impulse to kill him when he says that, especially after everything he does to egg her on up to that point. He is at a point where he can't take the tension of it anymore. It's his need to provoke me so much that I might kill him because he's so f---ing scared of being trapped like this is how I justify him saying it. Jeff did not want to say it."

Morgan's debut as Negan in The Walking Dead season 6's finale and season 7 premiere quickly established him as a force to be reckoned with moving forward in the series. But after defeating him and his Saviors in season 8, the character has taken an intriguing journey of redemption in recent seasons, which left many baffled by his antagonistic reference to Glenn in the season 11 premiere and seemingly leaving Maggie to her death in the cliffhanger final moments. Given Cohan has been connected to her character for so long, it's all the more understandable that she would be just as horrified by Negan's referral to Glenn as a dog as the audience was.

As terrible a line as it was, it should be noted that Morgan himself was vehemently against saying the line in The Walking Dead season 11 premiere, arguing that it wasn't needed and attempting to bring a variation at the very least only for the original version to ultimately be kept. Given the final season of the series has taken a different path from the comics, this sudden shift towards his cruel old ways does come as an original development for the show and certainly creates a point of curiosity as to what the future holds for Negan. Only time will tell when season 11 returns to AMC on Sunday nights.