Chandler Riggs faced many challenges as Carl in The Walking Dead Season 7, and he wasn’t always confident in his character’s ability to survive.
Riggs recently admitted during The Talking Dead he thought Negan would kill Carl and his character wasn’t necessarily ready to take that risk.
"I definitely think that that scene with Enid in Episode 5 was like a final goodbye type of thing," Riggs said. "I don't think Carl expected to make it out of there alive because he knows that if he kills Negan then they'll just mow him down and someone else will just take his place. I think Carl definitely thought it was a suicide mission and he wasn't coming back."
Yeah, Carl didn’t think through his entire plan through. Carl’s fear of Negan came out when he took out Lucille and started swinging it about. Carl’s shoulders’ tense up every time Negan would raise the bat.
Honestly, Carl was just acting an emotion like an teenager who witnessed something traumatic would. Can you blame him for wanting to become a cold-blooded killer? He’s survived two gunshot wounds! The only other person that’s been seriously injured is Daryl, and it was basically a flesh wound. Meanwhile Carl’s left looking deformed and blind.
Good thing Negan likes Carl enough to keep him around. Jeffrey Dean Morgan would even go as far as to say Negan respects the kid. Morgan explained to Entertainment Weekly why his character chose not to kill Carl.
“I just think that if Negan were to have a kid, he would want him to be this kid. He respects this kid and maybe he sees a bit of himself in him,” Morgan told EW. “His initial read on Carl as a little future serial killer is not only a great line, but there’s something he sees in Carl. Carl never has backed away from Negan. His dad has been in tears and no one else will make eye contact, yet Carl never breaks eye contact with Negan during the lineup or anything else, anything we’ve shot. He’s always pissed and I think there’s just a lot of respect there that Negan has for this kid to grow up in this world as he has and survive as long as he had. Negan just simply respects him.”
The Walking Dead Season 7 returns to February 2017 to AMC.
