The Walking Dead Star Was “So Upset” When Chandler Riggs’ Carl Grimes Was Killed Off

The Walking Dead star Cooper Andrews was “so upset” when he learned Chandler Riggs, who played Carl Grimes for eight seasons, was to be killed off in “Honor.” The episode saw Carl say his goodbyes with Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Michonne (Danai Gurira), and others, while slowly succumbing to an incurable walker bite sustained episodes earlier in “The King, the Widow, and Rick.” With his dying words, Carl urged his parents to make a peaceful future where they were no longer at war with Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) Saviors, with Rick promising to make Carl’s vision a reality. The “brutal” outcome is something the Walking Dead cast “didn’t want to see” happen.

“I was in the makeup trailer — they’ll leave the scripts out for us to sneak in, because we’ll be the last to get the scripts — and I’m like [crying],” Andrews said at GalaxyCon Richmond. “That was my reaction. I was like, oh my God! I got so upset. I loved his last episode, I loved it so much.”

Andrews recounted watching Riggs’ last episode at a convention, saying, “I remember watching it in the back, I’m like, ‘This is the worst one to watch with people.’ I’m like tearing up. It was rough, because I wanted to see Carl take it all the way.”

In the comic books, Carl survives through the very end of the book that concluded its story after 193 issues.

The actor also recalled the Grimes family reunion photo between Riggs, Judith Grimes actress Cailey Fleming and former Lori Grimes actress Sarah Wayne Callies aboard Walker Stalker Cruise 2019.

“I was on that cruise when they met for the first time, and that was so cool,” Andrews said. “It was Sarah Wayne Callies, and Chandler, and Cailey, and the three of them met, and I was like, ‘Whoa! People are gonna freak out when they see this!’”

Andrews was “definitely upset” by the unexpected death midway through Season 8.

“Chandler was super cool and just as welcoming as everybody when you came on,” Andrews added. “That was brutal, I felt it, we all felt it. We didn’t want to see that happen.”

Riggs has since said he’s satisfied with Carl’s death despite being “pretty bummed out at the time.”

“Now I get to go on and do other things,” he said during a recent stop at FAN EXPO Vancouver, where Riggs noted he thought Carl would survive until the end of The Walking Dead. “It’s fun, it’s really fun being able to explore other roles and be able to actually audition for films and whatnot. When I was on the show, I was locked into the show. I couldn’t do anything else. So it’s really cool to be able to do other things in the meantime when I’m not working.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays on AMC. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.