'Fear the Walking Dead' Star Lennie James Talks Leaving Show After Four Seasons (Exclusive)
Lennie James has been part of The Walking Dead franchise since the first episode of the original series aired in 2010. Since 2018, James has been part of the main cast of Fear the Walking Dead, but his run ended on Sunday when his character, Morgan, left the group and began his search for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). PopCulture.com spoke exclusively to James who was asked if he enjoyed how Morgan's run on Fear the Walking Dead ended.
"It obviously wasn't a surprise to me how he came to an end, and I'd been involved in talking through and mapping out how we would navigate bringing my time on the franchise to an end," James exclusively told PopCulture. "And you're either navigating how he's going to live or you're navigating how he's going to die. And the guys picked the one that worked better for them and then we set at it. Yeah, I'm happy with what we came up with and I'm happy with how we executed it."
James joined Fear the Walking Dead after appearing in 36 episodes of The Walking Dead over eight seasons. The 57-year-old actor became the anchor of the show after Kim Dickens left during the fourth season. Dickens returned to the show at the end of Season 7, and James worked with her during the season finale and most of the first half of Season 8 as their two characters battled against Padre.
"It was absolutely fantastic," James said when asked about working with Dickens. "It was my wish when I first came over from Walking Dead, one of the things I most looked forward to was working with Kim, and then when I didn't get that chance, I was knocking down every door possible to let everybody know that I wanted to and how important that was for me.
"I think the best compliment that I can pay to Kim is that we both knew what we were doing, we both knew what we wanted to do and we both came prepared to work with the other person and enjoy our time together. We had a lot of fun, we had a lot of laughs, but we worked hard at the scenes and she's a great person to play opposite. Whenever you're looking at Kim, you'll see nothing but the truth."
It's not a big surprise to see James exit from the show considering Fear the Walking Dead is in its final season. But does James know how the series ends?
"I'm really looking forward to watching them, so much so that I didn't read the episodes even though I was still in the episode loop," James explained. "So I haven't watched the episodes. I don't know what happens. I would get texts every now and then from the guys who were together saying, 'Oh, we're all together here,' or, 'We're all together here.' But I have deliberately avoided speaking to them about what happens at the end, how it all ends. I only know it in the absolute vaguest terms. I've seen a photograph of them on the last day, but that's about it. So, as a fan of the show, I'm really looking forward to the final six."