The Walking Dead fans like to debate who the series’ best villain is, but for one star of the show there’s no question about it: it’s obviously Phillip Blake AKA the Governor, big bad of seasons 3 and 4. Though the fact that this star is the Governor himself, David Morrissey, probably has something to do with it.
While speaking virtually on a panel at Wizard World Con, the British actor was asked who would win in a battle between four of TWD‘s biggest villains – the Governor, Terminus leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley), ex-Savior boss Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and queen of the Whisperers Alpha (Samantha Morton). Morrissey didn’t need to think about it as he was sure his character would “wipe the floor” with his foes.
“Out of those villains, obviously the Governor would wipe the floor with everybody,” Morrissey joked.
The conversation then turned to the contentious matter of whether Shane (Jon Bernthal) counts as one of the series’ main villains. Morrissey weighed into the debate with his own take, offering that he thinks Bernthal is a great performer.
“What a great actor,” Morrissey said. “I never got a chance to work with Jon, I think he’s a fantastic actor, really great. But that dynamic, which started off in Season 1, whether he’s a bad guy… he did some terrible things. That set the tone.”
The star went on to discuss his approach to playing Blake, saying how he could never think about the Governor as a villain but someone doing whatever he could for the good of his community.
“The important thing I think, as an actor, is you never judge your characters. So you never say to yourself, ‘This is a bad man,'” he said. “Because everything you’re doing, you’re doing for — you think — the good reason. He’s a man that has a town that he’s protecting, that he will do everything he can to protect that town, and he will convince himself that they are for the right reasons.”
Though the Governor was killed back in season 4, Morrissey hasn’t given up hope that he’ll be invited back to reprise his role as the eyepatch-wearing evildoer someday. He’s particularly keen to get a call to take part in Andrew Lincoln’s upcoming Walking Dead movies. And so long as it’s via flashback or hallucination, that’s likely something a lot of fans would like to see, too.
