The Walking Dead: Hilarie Burton Cast As Negan’s Wife Lucille (Exclusive)

The Walking Dead has found its Lucille. Negan’s wife will be played by Hilarie Burton, guest starring in one of the additional six episodes coming to AMC in early 2021. Burton is the real life wife to Negan actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the two have already begun working on an episode together in Georgia. AMC exclusively confirmed the casting to ComicBook.com as Burton will be billed as a “guest star” for her work with the AMC series. Fans of The Walking Dead comic which the AMC zombie series is based on likely have an accurate picture of what to expect.

In Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comics, Negan was married to a woman named Lucille prior to the end of the world. In the final days of the normal world, Lucille was battling cancer. The marriage was not traditional, as Negan had been having an affair which his wife was aware of prior to her diagnosis. Following the diagnosis, Negan wanted to spend as much time with his wife as possible, ultimately calling his affair off and dedicating all of his time to Lucille. When Lucille passed away, the moment of death came nearly simultaneously to the world falling and the zombie virus beginning to spread. Lucille reanimated as a walker in her hospital bed.

As the story goes, Negan named a baseball bat which he used to protect himself and others after his late wife. The infamous bat has since appeared on The Walking Dead. How far into the Here’s Negan prequel comic The Walking Dead will go remains to be seen. The six episode run in early 2021 will, to some degree, follow an anthology format by focusing on individual characters or small groups of characters with each new hour. Negan’s backstory seems to be the focus of one of these hours.

Burton is known well for her work in One Tree Hill and has also played roles in The Secret Life of Bees, Surprised by Love, Extant, and Grey’s Anatomy. Hilarie Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan tied the knot in October of 2019, having been together for many years prior to wedding, and have two kids together. Burton being spotted on set was first reported by CrookedLlama.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond airs Sundays at 10pm ET, following new episodes of Fear the Walking Dead at 9pm ET on AMC. The Walking Dead will return for 6 more episodes of Season 10 in the Spring. The 11th and final season of The Walking Dead will begin airing in the Fall of 2021.

(Photo: LISA O’CONNOR/AFP via Getty Images)