The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun Dishes Romantic Advice For Daryl And Says “Bring Him On” To Negan

Well, he wouldn’t tell us, but the smart money seems to say yes, right? After all, Negan is coming…

Yeun is one of the few remaining cast members who has been around since the beginning of the first season — and was the first friendly face Rick Grimes encountered after he woke up from his coma in a world ruled by the undead. His character’s safety, especially after being reunited with his wife Maggie, has been a frequent topic of discussion, especially since in the comics, he’s killed by a character named Negan, using a baseball bat…and trailers for this season show a man positioning a baseball bat behind Glenn’s bound and prone form.

ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak with Yeun about the upcoming season, as well as some of his thoughts on the future, the comics…and of course Daryl Dixon’s musical tastes.

We don’t know if that’s a thing, do we? Do we know that that’s a thing? How about I say…man, that’s a tough one. We don’t know if that’s a thing.

Well, advice in the abstract.

How about this: If you want to court Maggies sister, up your singing game, or instrument-playing game.

He ought to be playing something anyway, right? He dresses like the cover of Born to Run all the time.

Daryl seems like a Black Flag kind of guy.

No, people did call me and we had a discussion about it. What I’ll say is, you trust the writers to tell a good story and I think at this point, maybe it’s not a fake-out. You never know. We’re telling the story that needs to be told and whatever that takes is whatever we’re going to give the audience, I guess.

You know, lately it’s hard to keep things under wraps. Not in terms of what’s truthful or not, but it’s hard to keep speculation down considering wherever we go, people snap photos and stuff and then jump to their own conclusions.

What I will say is, with someone like Negan, there’s no way we’re not going to have him on the show in some capacity either soon or later. And I think that goes to show, Kirkman wrote a great, great jumping-off point. Because of that, Scott, who’s helming the whole thing, is making sure to really tell the story in the right way. So there’s no way we can avoid Negan and so for me personally, it’s like, “Bring him on. We’ll see what happens.”

So you think there’s a chance they’ll change things up a bit for TV?

I think that, but then I also think, how great and iconic is that moment? Sometimes you just have to deliver it the way it was intended. We’ll see what happens but I feel like the way that Kirkman wrote that end for him was magical in a way. You don’t get to have a long speech or you don’t get to have a whole diatribe about where you’re at as a character at that point in time and then be killed, it’s just you’re done. And I think that’s so ruthless and brutal and so apropos for the show.

I think for Glenn and Abraham, there’s a big, mutual respect there. I think both of them have been through quite a bit together and they kind of vouch for each other through their actions. So you find these two at a groupthink, a group mind. They respect each other and they’re in the same place of what they want this world to be but I think the difference is that Abraham is operating from this particular mission that he’s been trying to accomplish since we’ve seen him and Glenn is operating from a much wider mission, which is to keep his family and his friends safe.

I think the wedding was when I passed her the ring. And that’s what was so simple about that moment in Season Three, was that it’s not about doing this whole massive wedding or getting down on one knee or making something so overly romanticized. The world that they live in is so dark and bleak and they don’t know if they’re going to survive the next day and for them, that one moment was a mutual understanding and a mutual agreement to say, this ring represents something but even without this, we’re together. And if that means we’re married regardless of whether some ceremony exists or we’re notarized by some public official [laughs], it’s just that we’re together.

And I think him referring to her as his wife is such the right statement — regardless of whatever pomp and circumstantial tradition exists in the old world, we don’t live in that old world anymore. This new world is, I agree to be with you for the rest of my life and that’s what it’s going to be.

I think that’s always been a thing. I think that’s always something that they’re thinking about but you look at the circumstances by which they’re oppressed and they’re always into some s–t, you know? It’s not that they’re not thinking about that and it’s not that they’re not addressing that, but it’s that they have more pressing problems at that particular time which inhibit them from getting on that mission.

And you’ve got to also think, at one point are people making peace with things or at what point are people not bringing these things up because you don’t know what the other person’s fate is? It’s this incredible world that we live in that the audience is able to know that Beth was alive with Daryl at that time, but as a character, you don’t know what’s happening. You’re blind and if you’re living in this world, you’re probably assuming that she’s gone.

But not saying it! Why would you want to address something like that. But I think definitely Beth is on their mind, Beth is something that they’re actively striving for and Beth is someone that they love. But they’re also trying to fight that idea with the aspect of reality that exists, which is that this world eats people up, literally.