Steven Yeun Reflects on His Walking Dead Demise: I Was Always in Service to This Larger Narrative – Variety

The zombie apocalypse that took hold of TV in 2010 was very, very good for Steven Yeun.

To say that The Walking Dead was Yeuns breakout role would be an understatement so powerful it could reanimate a corpse.

Yeun had a handful of onscreen credits to his name before he was cast in the AMC series in the role of Glenn Rhee.The character immediately proved to be pivotal to the series, as he was the one who initially rescued Andrew Lincolns Rick Grimes from zombies in the shows second episode, which made the character part of the group that formed the core of the series.

Though Glenn was just a pizza delivery guy prior to the events of the series, he quickly became a fan favorite after he demonstrated a willingness to risk his life to protect others. It also did not hurt hegot to star in an iconic Season 1 scene in which he speeds out of a ruined Atlanta in a fire-red Dodge Challenger to distract the zombies and cover the groups escape.

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, Yeun told Variety.

The Walking Deads popularity soared from the outset,growingto become the highest-rated showon television for multiple seasons.Although the show features a large ensemble cast, Yeun was a major part of that success, with the character Glennmorphing from a plucky young member of the shows central group toa bona fide action hero and sex symbol.

To wit, fans of Walking Dead would be hard-pressed to name a more intense scene than the one in the Season 3 episode When the Dead Come Knocking in which Glenn is tied to a chair and locked in a room where a zombie is turned loose. The scene ends with Glenn somehow managing to kill it and letting out a very real and raw primal scream.

Moreover, fans got a look at Glenns tender side too, after Yeun and costar Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie Greene, became the first couple of the zombie apocalypse. The two characters made a love connection in Season 2 and managed to stick together through any number oflife and deathsituations.

All the fan affection and admiration came the incredibly strong backlash when Glenn was killed off in grisly fashion (it involved a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire) in the Season 7 premiere in October 2016.

The death was not altogether unexpected, given that the character dies at the identical moment in the comic series that inspired Walking Dead. But fans of the show were still none too happy about it, with some even swearing off watching the show from that moment forward. Yet Yeun has no hard feelings. Seven seasons on a top-rated primetime series left him more confident about his skills and more determined to speak up on the job.

Leaving [the show], if I had any weird feelings about it, was mostly that I hadnt taken the time for myself to understand who I was and maybe my voice and what I wanted to say, Yeun says. 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 Im done. I think I want to try the other side.

(Pictured: Steven Yeun and Lauren Cohen in The Walking Dead.)

Matt Donnelly contributed to this report.

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Steven Yeun Reflects on His Walking Dead Demise: I Was Always in Service to This Larger Narrative - Variety

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero