The Walking Dead star Steven Yeun (Glenn) reflects on his character’s gruesome death as he looks back on his time with the iconic show.
Steven Yeun came into our lives as Glenn Rhee when The Walking Dead first premiered back in 2010. He was the first person to befriend Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) post-coma and went on to have a beautiful love story with Maggie (Lauren Cohan). Glenn was the heart and soul of the series right up until his brutal final moments.
Speaking with Variety, Steven Yeun looked back on playing Glenn and addressed the character’s controversial death scene, which had fans fuming for months. In the show as in the comics, Glenn is pummeled to death by the cruel Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), but faithful to the source material or no, it was a step too far for some fans.
That said, Yeun is just thankful for the opportunities the show gave him. “I think for me it was a massive blessing to get ‘Walking Dead’ because not only did I meet incredible people that taught me some incredible ways to navigate life — to be a professional, to be an actor, to take a job seriously — but also just submit to a beast such as ‘Walking Dead,'” he said.
"Leaving [the show], if I had any weird feelings about it, was mostly that I hadn’t taken the time for myself to understand who I was and maybe my voice and what I wanted to say. I was always kind of in service to this larger narrative. And in some ways that reflects kind of how I was raised in my early years. I think I’m done. I think I want to try the other side."
In the days since The Walking Dead, Yeun has been keeping himself busy with other projects. You can currently see him in the Sundance favorite Minari, which tells the story of a Korean immigrant family who winds up in Arkansas hoping to get into the farming business.
Yeun has a leading role that could put him on a path to Oscar glory, perhaps even becoming the first Asian American to win Best Actor. Fingers crossed!
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