Mild spoilers for Fear the Walking Dead's most recent episodes below.
Here in the midst of Fear the Walking Dead Season 5, Lennie James' Morgan has gotten to do quite a few things he wouldn't have been able to do back within one of The Walking Dead's flagship communities. Not the least of which is "smiling a lot more often." Even though hopefulness and good vibes are a lot more prevalent in Fear's southern locales than in Walking Dead's Virginia settings, James reflected on a regret he has about jumping ship, and also how he'd feel about joining the Rick Grimes movie.
Recently, Lennie James talked about the two elements that make him regret having walked away from The Walking Dead in he first place: the arrivals of Samantha Morton's Alpha, leader of The Whisperers, and Ryan Hurst's Beta, who serves as Alpha's second-in-command. Here's how James put it:
I was very keen to see [Samantha Morton] and [Ryan Hurst]'s characters come into the show, because again they're two actors I greatly admire, and now regret I didn't hang around longer so I could have done some work with them.
Lennie James wouldn't have had to wait all that long for them to arrive, either. He vacated The Walking Dead after Season 8 in order to join Fear the Walking Dead for its genre-flipping Season 4, while the Whisperers were introduced at the midpoint of Season 9. So had he stayed on, it would have mostly concerned James finding things to do during that time, so that he might be able to purchase it outright.
It's hard to know just how the Whisperers would have affected Morgan had he stayed on the show, especially since the group arrived after Andrew Lincoln's Rick had disappeared via Helicopter. (Also before being fully killed off in the Walking Dead comic books, which have since concluded.) And we still haven't been introduced to the new Whisperer Gamma, played by Thora Birch.
There's technically always a shot that Morgan might be able to hook back up with his O.G. crew, but that would involve a lot of cross-country cross-pollination between projects, and it seems like both show's storylines are already heading in certain directions.
Something that fans might be able to count on, though, is Lennie James putting in a potential performance on the upcoming Walking Dead theatrical release. Here's what the actor told Digital Spy about it.
Obviously if such a thing was possible I would jump at the chance. For me, some of the best days on both jobs – and I've had some fantastic days on both jobs – but some of my best days have been working with Andy, and getting a chance for Morgan and Rick to tool up again... obviously I wouldn't say no to that.
Seeing Morgan pal up again with Rick and the rest against whatever new threats would be excellent, seeing as how those two characters were used to set up this entire universe. Of course, even if he only showed up on The Walking Dead for a small cameo, that would be better than nothing. However, Morgan likely still doesn't even know that Rick is missing
For what it's worth, former Walking Dead star Chandler Riggs also said he would love to join the Rick Grimes movies, which will get theatrical releases ahead of a more widespread release on AMC. Riggs will be returning to A Million Little Lies this fall, but there are likely more than enough spots for him to back away from. Not that it would be easy to reverse his whole "bitten by a walker, and now that I've saved Alexandria's population, I'm going to shoot myself in a church" situation. It's likely like that Rick and MIchonne buried a fake body. But stranger things have happened.
Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 airs Sunday nights on AMC at 8 p.m
