Latest ‘The Walking Dead’ Victim Wanted to Be Killed Off

Xander Berkeley, the latest actor to have his character killed off The Walking Dead, says having his slimy former Hilltop leader Gregory jailed for much of Season Eight was grounds for wanting to see the character written out.

"There's only so long a douchebag like Gregory can stay alive, so I wasn't shocked to find out, even though it was very much at the last minute and I had been a little bit set up to expect a very different journey. That was when [former showrunner] Scott Gimple was guiding it," Berkeley told EW.

Berkeley expected Gregory to see a return to power before his inevitable demise, having fallen from grace after Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) supplanted him as de facto leader before a community-wide vote made her status official in Season Nine.

But the changing of hands from Gimple to Angela Kang being instilled as showrunner and the looming exits of Cohan and Rick Grimes actor Andrew Lincoln saw the show take Gregory in another direction, with the season opener culminating with Gregory's death by hanging after two back-to-back failed attempts on Maggie's life.

"Last year, this assistant had given me ideas of where it was going to go and then [Gimple] switched over to Fear the Walking Dead, and Angela came in and she had her whole set of ideas — which is part of what Scott does and any good show writer will do when handing the reins over to the new showrunner is, let them run with it and go with their ideas," Berkeley said.

"I know there was a certain amount of up-in-the-airiness about Lauren, and then we all know about Andrew. All that shuffling must be involved in the balancing out of storyline so, yeah, it was very last-minute for me, but I have no hard feelings about it."

For his shady dealings with the Saviors, namely leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and right-hand man Simon (Steven Ogg), Gregory was jailed along with numerous Savior POWs in 806. He spent much of the rest of the season behind the barbwire walls of the Hilltop's makeshift prison before being inadvertently sprung by young Kingdom member Henry (Macsen Lintz), only to later be rejailed.

"Well, what I had been led to believe at one point — not through Scott directly, but through an assistant — when I was stuck in that damn pen. I had so much fun on the show. I mean they gave me such great stuff right off the bat, and it was just so much fun no matter how unctuous or devious the character was," he said.

"But the stuff in the pen last year in season 8, it got a little purged for me. It was just a long way to be away way from home at my stage of the game and to be away from the children."

Berkeley, who has since booked a role on The CW's Supergirl, felt underutilized and ultimately sided with being killed off.

That was the first time on the show that I was in conflict because I was like, 'Kill me out.' You know, 'Give me something exciting. Kill me out so I can get home to my children and/or other more interesting projects,'" Berkeley said.

"I've always got more interesting things to be doing than sitting around in a prison pen saying the same lines that I said more or less five times before. I'm like, 'I don't deserve this.' You know, how many times can you do that? And then they did come up with some cool stuff in getting out, and then when he gets hauled back in and the bumping of the head — I loved that episode. But I told Scott's assistant, 'I'm languishing a little long in the pen,' and he said, 'We've brought Gregory down here, and the intent of course is to bring him back up into power before the inevitable demise.'"

After a long career in film and television and on the receiving end of numerous onscreen deaths, Berkeley was happy to see the character meet the same end as his comic book counterpart and to play out the hanging.

"I was counting on them following through on the comic book's inevitable swinging from the tree at one time or another, but I just wasn't sure it was gonna happen," he said.

"It felt a little bit jammed into an also-ran for a season premiere, but eh, it's just me. It's a bit mustache-twirly when I turned on her. They did as much as they could, but I think they just had so many stories that they were trying to juggle. Angela is a good writer and I think she knows what she's doing, so I don't really question it. I can't imagine having her job with all those characters and then all the actors that go behind them."

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.