Andrew Lincoln Reveals Why He is Leaving ‘The Walking Dead’ in Season 9

Andrew Lincoln revealed the reason he is leaving The Walking Dead, citing his family as the main draw to head home.

Lincoln, who has played Rick Grimes since the AMC show’s pilot episode, will exit the zombie drama in the upcoming ninth season. The show will continue in his absence but Lincoln is already feeling heavy doses of relief. “Completing the show was like releasing air finally,” Lincoln told EW. “And it was very satisfying the last two episodes in particular. But doing a panel and having to talk to [thousands of] people in Hall H and then have all my friends hug me at the end? The s— got real, is the truth of the matter.”

While the cast and fandom of The Walking Dead are very much a family, dedicating himself to this crew pulled Lincoln from his loved ones in the United Kingdom. After spending most months of the year stateside away from his loved ones, Lincoln was ready to head back to his family’s more permanent embrace after nearly a decade.

“I have two young children, and I live in a different country, and they become less portable as they get older,” Lincoln said. “It was that simple. It was time for me to come home.”

Lincoln did, however, provide a tease of what to expect from Season Nine as efforts of rebuilding the world continue. “The world is deteriorating,” Lincoln said. “Food is scarce, the Hilltop’s the main sort of food source, communications are breaking down, we don’t have gas anymore and we’re on horseback, and we’ve run out of bullets. So there is an enormous pressure on this group.”

Speaking to ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic Con, Lincoln expressed similar sentiments about his exit. “Nine years I was thinking about it because that’s where we live,” Lincoln said. “I suppose it was a lot to do with a conversation Scott [Gimple] and I had a few years ago, maybe in season four about the shape and finding some way to complete something that was never going to be completed.”

It was important to Lincoln that his and Rick’s exit from the show did not damage its future. “And then not, obviously, disturbing the mothership,” Lincoln said. “There was a sort of sense that the story has been a man waking up and you experience this world through this one man’s eyes and it opens up into the extended family. Now, what’s exciting, I think for me, is the fact that the narrative is being freed up. And it’s already been freed up from the beginning of this season. You’ll see the trailer. It’s a different tone. It feels like the show that I always felt we would head toward when we wrapped the pilot. And so yeah, even sure it was something that I started to think about as my children got older and less portable.”

Fear the Walking Dead returns for the back half of its fourth season on August 12th at 9 pm ET on AMC. The Walking Dead returns for its ninth season on October 7, 2018. For more updates and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter!