Season three of The Walking Dead saw the survivors take refuge in a high security prison, but when Rick Grimes and his group arrived there, they found themselves face to face with a small group of prisoners who had remained holed up inside. Despite his dark past, Axel became a close ally to Rick, just like in the comic books.
Despite that, Lew Temple's time in the AMC series was short-lived, and a storyline revolving around him being a serial killer who kidnapped Beth Greene ended up being scrapped.
Now, the actor has revealed that Andrew Lincoln did everything he could to keep Axel in The Walking Dead. "As a matter of fact, Andrew Lincoln then went to the production, to the producers, and said, 'I think we're making a mistake here, let's not do this just yet,'" Temple revealed in an interview with KyTalk Live.
This let do some discussion among the show's writers as they reportedly considered killing off other series regulars instead. Unfortunately for the actor, though, he couldn't be saved.
"I was notified three weeks in advance. I was asked at the time not to talk about it because it wasn't set in stone. I thought Axel was gonna be an integral part of the survival group, and I was kind of being led to believe that he was as well. By virtue of the graphic novels, I was well aware that he does die, but I was thinking that maybe it wasn't going to come as quickly as it did."
This was definitely a noteworthy missed opportunity on The Walking Dead's part, and many fans felt the show moved on too quickly from both the prison and The Governor. The portrayal of that villain was one of the first major departure from the source material, but even though some big changes were made on screen, it was around this point the series started breaking ratings records!