Steven Yeun has finally broken his silence after his character Glenn’s fate was revealed Sunday on The Walking Dead.
(Spoiler Alert! This article contains details about Sunday night’s The Walking Dead.)
Appearing live via satellite on Sunday night’s Talking Dead, Yeun was finally able to speak freely about Sunday’s big reveal that Glenn Rhee survived falling into a crowd of walkers by crawling to safety under a dumpster.
“I feel relieved, I feel very grateful, I feel so amazed at the response,” Steven told show host Chris Hardwick, when asked how he feels now. “I feel bad that I couldn’t say anything to everyone, and family and friends. … But yeah… I mean, it’s kind of been overwhelming. I didn’t even know how to really take it all.”
Steven said he became reclusive since the third episode of the season aired four weeks ago, when his character’s fate was left up in the air.
“I have not been out much. I frequent a lot of take-out,” he said. “My apartment looks like a hoarder’s house.”
Yeun said Glenn’s survival symbolizes hope in an uncertain world.
“I think it proves that this world still can take that story of the good guy winning sometimes,” he said. “I really like the fact that it’s not this, you know, bent of always seeking out something miserable happening on television or something terrible, and sulking on that and rather just really accepting the fact that sometimes good guys survive.”
Executive Producer Scott Gimple, who appeared with Steven Yeun on the satellite feed, explained why fans had to wait a month to learn of Glenn’s fate.
“The story we were telling was one of uncertainty,” he said. “When people leave the walls, in this case of Alexandria, they don’t have cell phones, they aren’t rocking ’80s beepers, you don’t know what happens, you have no idea. When they leave, that could be the last time you ever see them and I think it was important to do a story this year about uncertainty and that the audience would share that uncertainty that the characters had, like in Episode 5. Maggie didn’t know what happened to Glenn and I wanted the audience to be exactly where she was, to feel the exact same way.”
The Walking Dead midseason finale airs next Sunday night at 9 PM ET/PT on AMC.
