A lot of fans are in mourning today following the death of Jesus in The Walking Dead but if there's one person who is happy about that shocking development, it's actor Tom Payne. Over the past few weeks, we learned that Jesus had become the reluctant leader of Hilltop and the show even started teasing romance between him and Aaron (which also happened in the comics).
Neither of those storylines will get chance to play out, as Payne's frustrations over the past couple of years were seemingly enough to make him realise it wasn't worth sticking around.
"It was a mutual [decision], and I was really happy about it," he reveals, adding that "I expressed unhappiness [to the producers] last season…. You can’t help but feel a little bit despondent when you’re not released to do some cool stuff."
"I loved the character," he insists. "But there was just so much potential [based on the comic-book Jesus]… that wasn’t realized. [So] I wasn’t sad to say goodbye to that frustration. It was constant." That can't have been fun, and it's definitely fair to say that Jesus could have been handled better as he's too often faded into the background of the long-running series.
As for the disappointment from fans about that Aaron tease, the actor called that "unfair" but added that pairing them up would have "been a bit lazy: ‘Here are two gay characters. They should get together!'"
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