While speaking to Forbes, former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins revealed that he was up for the role of Negan on AMC's The Walking Dead. Regardless of how you feel about the show's cliffhanger season finale, Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a phenomenal job as Negan but casting Rollins would have brought a different sort of intensity. However, going by Rollins' statement it's hard to determine just how close he came to landing the part, despite the fact that the character is partially based on him.
"Since I didn’t get the part I can tell you this. I was up for the role of Negan because Charlie Adlard, who worked on the comic book, based that guy on me and so I was a shoo-in for an audition. The internet was wild with speculation because in the upcoming season they were going to introduce the character. A woman that works in my office put my name and the character’s name into an internet search and all this speculation came up. I went for the audition and there were five pages of really cool dialogue with all these curses and it was beautiful, but I didn’t get it. I later saw a photograph of the guy who did get it and he looks almost exactly like the comic book rendering. The woman at my office watched the episode where he turns up, the dialogue that I auditioned with was in the show and she said, ‘It should have been you.’ Obviously it wasn’t or this conversation would be very different but that happened. I had to sign one of those documents where you can’t talk about it but now it’s over and done with… so yeah, I was up for that part. I get great auditions, I auditioned for stuff like Narcos too, but rarely does anything come my way. What usually comes my way is a no audition thing like The Last Heist or He Never Died that the film’s writer, Jason Krawczyk, wrote with me in mind."
Maybe Rollins' audition take will surface online one day? With Rollins revealing his audition, it will be interesting to see if any other actors reveal that they were also up for the part? Aside from Morgan and Rollins, Garret Dillahunt (Justified) also tested for the role.
ComicBookMovie.com, and/or the user who contributed this post, may earn commissions or revenue through clicks or purchases made through any third-party links contained within the content above.