The Walking Dead: Jeffrey Dean Morgan Talks About The Beauty Of Lucille

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is basically Negan. Off the set, he wears black, he swears for fun, and he bashes in skulls if you don't give him half your s---. Okay, that last part isn't true, but the actor is really taking the role seriously and having some fun with it.

Comic book fans know, and TV audiences have gotten a taste of, how important Lucille is the new Walking Dead villain. If you don't know, you're gonna be up to speed real quick. Lucille is Negan's bat, named after his dead wife, but he treats her like a lady and cherishes all 34 inches of her.

Morgan has earned that same attachment to Lucille as his counterpart Negan.

"It really kind of, for me, informed my character and who I was — just kind of the heft of her and the love that he has for her," Morgan says of Negan's precious bat. "It makes him hard, for God's sake, just holding her. But it was great care taken with Lucille from the guys that built her."

"There's something about her, especially when there's blood dripping off her. There's a certain beauty that she has. And for me it's an extension of Negan. They become one in these scenes together. It's his d—. I mean, for lack of a better thing, it really is."

Lucille helps define Negan. Without her, he is hardly himself.

"It's how he walks differently with her, he holds her, and it's a part of him," Morgan goes on. "He uses her to emphasize certain points, not just 'I'm going to kill you.' There's a thing that he has with Lucille, and it's as close to love as maybe Negan will ever have. He loves Lucille. She's a character of her own. I mean, she really is, and I love the way he talks about her and he feels about her and how he treats her. But yeah, the first time I held her I knew — this is it."

returns for its seventh season on October 23 at 9 PM ET on AMC.

(via EW)