Andrew Lincoln's Request for Rick's 'The Walking Dead' Death Scene

Years prior to news of Andrew Lincoln's exit from The Walking Dead, the Rick Grimes actor had a request for his final scene on the AMC show.

"I've always said, I don't care how it goes, but maybe a kid should take me out," Lincoln said in 2014 while talking to EW. "It's funny, because I was in the car yesterday, and I texted Scott Gimple and I said, 'Promise me, when I die, on the credits sequence, you play Johnny Cash's version of Hurt.' And he just said, 'I can't make that promise obviously.' So when I die, please print it in your magazine so that the fans will know to play it, even if we can't. Even if Scott Gimple decides not to, please everybody play Hurt."

The song has since been used for Fox's Logan movie, which saw the titular X-Men hero sign off of the franchise for Hugh Jackman's final outing. It has, in fact, been used in several iconic moments in cinematic and television moments.

With Andrew Lincoln leaving The Walking Dead in its ninth season, many suspect it means Rick will die. This, however, might not be the case when Season Nine reveals how the actor and his character will exit. This does mean, though, that fans will have to have their music players at the ready for each episode of the season, prepared to play the song Lincoln wants them to hear. Rights to such a song might be difficult and it would be unusual for the AMC show to play anything other than its theme song during the end credits.

Lincoln wants the show to have a proper sense of awareness which he revealed in a recent an interview with ComicBook.com, as approaches pouring nearly a decade of his life into it. "There's part of me that really wants to complete something," Lincoln said. "How long that takes? I don't know but certainly I really think the fans and my character deserves an end point as some time in the future."

If the Season Eight finale were to have been that end point, Lincoln might have walked away content. After all, it did feel like a series finale to many, with almost all of the narrative threads and character stories being wrapped up nicely.

"I think that when we got the news that Carl was dying on the show, it certainly for me, it felt like very much a bookend of a much bigger journey that began in the hospital," Lincoln said. "Searching for his wife and his son were the two engines that kept this man alive at the beginning of the show eight years. To lose the second engine that fueled him, at this point, certainly did feel, to me personally, not just the end of a chapter but a book, really."

The Walking Dead will return for its ninth season in the fall. Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 pm ET on AMC, returning for the second half of its fourth season on August 12th. For complete coverage and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.