Andrew Lincoln Jokes That It Was A Terrible Decision To Leave The Walking Dead

There was a time when Rick Grimes was synonymous with AMC’s The Walking Dead, but after the show had been on the air for nearly a decade, actor Andrew Lincoln felt that he’d put enough of his life into it and wanted to be around his family back in the UK more. As such, he bowed out of the series during the ninth mid-season finale, with an ambiguous final scene that left fans clamoring to see him again.

Lincoln recently joined some of his old co-stars for a virtual Georgia Senate fundraiser where they all engaged in trivia and discussed The Walking Dead. During the event, the actor opened up about his life since leaving the show and expressed some regret about jumping ship, saying:

I came back home for the kids, and now they’re sick of me, and I wish I’d never left. It’s bullshit! It was a terrible decision!

Andy also shared his love of Atlanta, GA, where the series is primarily shot, stating:

I didn’t know what the South [of the USA] was. I’d never been to the South. And then I went to Georgia, and I fell in love with this extraordinary city, Atlanta. Living and working in the South was extraordinary. There’s a sort of English attitude about the South – they’re sort of quite patronizing at dinner parties. I said, ‘This the most advanced, civilized, extraordinarily progressive place I’ve ever been in my life’, and that was 12 years ago.

Of course, Lincoln isn’t entirely done with The Walking Dead universe, as he’s returning in the upcoming films that will pick up with Rick Grimes to see what happened after he was lifted away in a helicopter in his final scene on the show. It’s been quite a long wait for them, but we’ve been promised that they’ll be well worth it.

If you need more Andrew Lincoln in the near future, though, he can be seen in a heartwarming new movie on January 27th. Penguin Bloom tells the story of a family coping with a horrible tragedy by nursing a Magpie named Penguin back to health. It’s looking like a charming way to spend an evening, so don’t miss it when it drops on Netflix next month.

As for The Walking Dead, season 10 returns for its final six episodes starting February 28th, 2021.