Dan Fogler Reveals What Happened to Luke on The Walking Dead

Luke lives! Dan Fogler reveals what happened to Luke — and if he’ll be back on The Walking Dead. Season 9 introduces music teacher Luke and his tight-knit group of zombie apocalypse survivors Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), Magna (Nadia Hilker), and sisters Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Kelly (Angel Theory). The fivesome arrives at Hilltop just as Alpha (Samantha Morton) and the Whisperers are unmasked as people posing as walkers, killing Jesus (Tom Payne) and igniting the Whisperer War. Though he’s a victim of the Whisperers in the comics, Luke lives to see the end of the Whisperer War on the show.

We last see Luke in the Season 10 episode “A Certain Doom,” where members of the coalition cover themselves in walker guts to infiltrate the Whisperers’ zombie horde and kill Beta (Ryan Hurst). Fogler did not film for the first two parts of the three-part final season. 

During a recent panel appearance at Fandemic Tour Atlanta with co-stars Nadia Hilker and Cassady McClincy, Fogler said Luke is living at Oceanside with Jules (Alex Sgambati).

“Last time you saw Luke, he was chilling with Jules. I suspect that he’s over at Oceanside, just living it up on the beach there, having a good time,” Fogler said. With a laugh, Fogler added Luke is likely “teaching music classes.” 

Fogler also hinted Luke would return in the third and final part of The Walking Dead Season 11 airing later this year on AMC. Fogler was away in the Harry Potter universe reprising his role as muggle baker Jacob Kowalski in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, and filmed another TV series, playing The Godfather filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola in Paramount+’s The Offer.  

In 2020, the actor told the Talk Dead to Me podcast he expected Luke to be killed off after a single season.  

“[Showrunner] Angela Kang called me up one day and she said, ‘Do you want to play Luke?’ And I was like, ‘Yes! Absolutely,’ because I’m a fan of the comic book, and just the idea of playing a character that exists in the comic book, for me, just makes the child in me very happy,” Fogler said. “I knew he’s supposed to be, in the comics, he’s supposed to be one of the heads on those [Whisperer] spikes. So I thought, ‘Okay, this is cool, I can come in and just do one season, and I’m out.’”

He continued, “And I had a really great time. I really enjoyed bashing zombie heads [laughs]. I always wanted to be in a zombie movie, and so I get that, and I always wanted to be in a western, and so I get that, too.”

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