Jeffrey Dean Morgan has cemented his status as a pop culture icon thanks to his role as the infamous and brutal Negan in The Walking Dead. Morgan plays the character to perfection, giving a multifaceted performance responsible for some of Negan’s best episodes on the show. This is a testament to the actor’s ability to weave between roles with total ease.

He has appeared in several very well-known properties, from Watchmen to Supernatural, but his real life is as down-to-earth as it gets. Despite his status as one of the most fascinating villains on TV, Morgan prefers to play it cool, live a simple life, and keep things in perspective.

He Never Had To Audition For Negan

Jeffrey Dean Morgan never had to audition for his role as Negan on The Walking Dead, which is impressive, given that most major television shows require one. For most actors, it’s a battle before the casting director to try and make a big enough impact to get that coveted callback.

In an interview with EW, Morgan said that he got a call from his agent and manager, claiming that The Walking Dead producers offered him the role. According to them, Morgan was a shoo-in for the role of Negan; a perfect fit that would utilize his inherent strengths and physical presence to their advantage.

He Played Joe DiMaggio

Negan is known for carrying around a wicked-looking baseball bat named Lucille, but it wasn’t the real-life actor’s first brush with baseball. In 2015, he played one of the greatest baseball players of all time, cementing his connection to the Walking Dead weapon in a rather unorthodox fashion.

In the TV miniseries The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, Morgan played Monroe’s ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, the New York Yankees’ Hall of Fame star. This would be the first of several roles that Morgan would take which were a direct flip from his role as Negan.

Negan Is One Of His Only Surviving Characters

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has taken on major roles in four popular television shows, and The Walking Dead is the only one he has survived in, at least thus far. It remains to be seen whether Negan will buy the farm at the end of the show’s final season, or if he’ll follow a storyline closer to the original comics.

His character checked out in one of Supernatural’s most shocking deaths, then another character died on Grey’s Anatomy after 23 episodes. Finally, he was only in two episodes of the Showtime hit series Weeds before he was dead and gone, leaving his wife to turn to a life of selling marijuana to support her family. And that’s only counting his TV roles.

He Wore Prosthetics As The Comedian In Watchmen

The Walking Dead is one of five comic book properties that Jeffrey Dean Morgan has appeared in. His first big stint in comic book adaptations was Zack Snyder’s divisive Watchmen film, where he played the Comedian, a washed-up superhero who gets murdered at the start of the film under mysterious circumstances.

In the movie, he looked quite buffed up, but it was only an illusion. Instead of spending countless hours in a gym to bulk up, Morgan wore a prosthetic torso that added muscle mass, making him look much bigger than he really was. From a comic book movie perspective, this actually made plenty of sense.

He Was Batman’s Dad

Jeffrey Dean Morgan took on a key role in the DCEU movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In another retelling of the story of Batman’s origin, Morgan starred as Thomas Wayne, the father of Bruce Wayne who was gunned down and killed in Crime Alley along with his wife.

In a bizarre twist of fate, it was his Walking Dead co-star Lauren Cohan who played his wife Martha Wayne. In the TV show, Cohen plays fan-favorite Maggie Rhee, the woman who watched Negan murder her husband Glenn in horrific fashion with a baseball bat.

He Co-Owns A Sweet Shop

Morgan teamed up with MCU Ant-Man star Paul Rudd and a few others to run Samuel’s Sweet Shop in Rhinebeck, New York, which went far beyond a simple sweet tooth love affair. Actually, the story itself is as equally sweet as the candy sold in the actual shop.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Morgan said the two actors knew the owner, Ira Gutner, who owned the shop for 20 years. Morgan said Ira was the first person he met when he moved to Rhinebeck, and when he passed away, both Morgan and Rudd bought and maintained the candy shop in his honor.

Nancy Wilson Of Heart Taught Him To Play Guitar

Jeffrey Dean Morgan also appeared in a romantic drama movie called P.S. I Love You. This was a tear-jerker film starring Hilary Swank as a woman whose husband dies of a brain tumor. However, he leaves a series of messages delivered to her after his death, and each message sends her on an adventure.

She ends up meeting a new man named William, a guitar player and musician portrayed by Morgan. To learn how to properly play guitar for the movie, Morgan said he received lessons from Nancy Wilson from the iconic classic rock band Heart, which was quite an honor.

He Met His Wife On A Blind Date

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been married for two years, but he has been with his wife since they started dating in 2009. Hilarie Burton is an actress who became famous thanks to her role on One Tree Hill, where she played Peyton Sawyer for six seasons.

It was One Tree Hill that played into the couple meeting and getting together. Hilarie co-starred on the show with Danneel Harris, who was dating Morgan’s Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles in 2009. Morgan told HuffPost Live that it was Danneel who set up the blind double date for Morgan to meet Burton. The two would co-star together on The Walking Dead, which gave a backstory on Lucille, the deceased wife of Negan.

He Lives On A Farm

Jeffrey Dean Morgan started a new reality show with his wife Hilarie Burton called Friday Night in with the Morgans, where he took fans into their home lives during the pandemic. It was here that fans saw that the actor was not like most of his contemporaries.

Instead of living in the big city, Morgan and Burton live on a working farm. The reality show revealed that he has plenty of animals, including cows, ducks, chickens, and a llama. This no doubt contributes to Morgan’s salt-of-the-earth personality and temperament.

He Bonded With Norman Reedus Over Motorcycles

Norman Reedus started a show on AMC titled Ride with Norman Reedus, where the actor invites celebrity guests to participate. Morgan, a fellow motorcycle enthusiast, has been on the show more than once, giving two TV frenemies a chance to show how they react in the real world.

In The Walking Dead, Daryl was essentially taken hostage by Negan and psychologically tormented in the hopes that he’d join the Saviors. Since their defeat, Negan and Daryl have little more than begrudging respect for one another, and nothing beyond that.