NEED TO KNOW
Lauren Cohan is teasing what the future holds for her character Maggie on The Walking Dead: Dead City.
During an interview on PEOPLE in 10 ahead of the show’s season 2 finale — airing Sunday, June 22 — Cohan, 43, teased that they’ll be doing “something very, very new” for Maggie and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) come season 3.
“I’m probably not allowed to talk about this actually, but I think that the baseline with Maggie and Negan is ultimately what makes us who we are and how capable are we of change — and is it really up to me to decide someone’s fate?” Cohan said.
“Is it really up to me to take a life, and what does that say about your belief in change and your belief in the future?” she continued.
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Cohan addressed the fact that many fans think Maggie should never forgive Negan for killing her husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun).
“I don’t like to say too much because it’s kind of like the heart of what keeps this tension between us,” she explained. “And it’s still being explored, and it’s for people to sort of have their own experience with as well, as a viewer.”
Cohan added, “But I know it is not tidy, and it’s not black and white and it’s changing.”
Negan brutally killed Glenn in season 7 of The Walking Dead, with fans mourning the loss of the fan-favorite character. Not to mention his death occurred before Maggie gave birth to his child, Hershel, now played by Logan Kim on Dead City.
Cohan also said she’s excited to see where her character goes in season 3, teasing that “we do resolve some things” for her.
“I don’t see a hard ending, but I see something around the corner,” she said of Maggie. “She’s trapped in this sort of myopic view where her entire outlook is colored by her resentment against someone who took something from her that she’ll never get back.”
“All she has left is her son, so her entire modus operandi is dictated by protecting and salvaging this one person she has left to protect,” she added.
Cohan said she’s interested in seeing Maggie uncoupled from the things that have identified her most recently, be it “mother, leader, warrior, protector, enemy of Negan,” and to “revisit the person we first met.”
“That stuff really moves me,” she shared.
Robert Clark/AMC
Cohan opened up about her directorial debut, stepping behind the camera to direct the June 8 episode.
“I think aspects of it came naturally, and I think I had really good advice early on of don’t ever pretend to know something that you don’t know, which is, by the way, such great advice for life,” she joked.
Cohan admitted that, despite Morgan being “so excited” for her to direct and her being “hyper-prepared” to take on the task, she felt “intimidated” to give feedback to her fellow actors.
“I had moments at the beginning where I just have so much respect and awe for the people that I work with that there was a moment of me having to just be like, ‘It’s cool. They’re your buddies. You’re just talking,'” she recalled. “But you’re still aware of it.”
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The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 finale airs Sunday, June 22, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.
