Juan Gabriel Pareja on the return of Morales to The Walking Dead
Morales made his return to The Walking Dead and actor Juan Gabriel Pareja spoke about his return.
When last we saw actor Juan Gabriel Pareja’s Morales on The Walking Dead, he was splitting from the original group from Atlanta and taking his family elsewhere, after declining to join Rick and the others as they searched for the CDC.
On Sunday night’s episode, “The Damned,” Morales returned in the most unexpected of places, and seemingly sans his family. Pareja sat down with Entertainment Weekly and spoke about his return to the show, and how he decided to hit the gym with a personal trainer to get in shape, just in case the show called and officially offered him a return gig.
He also mentions former The Walking Dead showrunner, Glen Mazarra, had possibly been working on a return for Morales very early on.
"…but it was very informal, kind of casual conversations here and there. And there might have been one other time when it came up, but this was definitely the first official out in this capacity."
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Pareja also mentions working with Rick Grimes actor Andrew Lincoln again, and how his “generous spirit” made jumping back in, after being gone for seven seasons, comfortably easy.
"If you know Andy, you know that he’s got just the kind of sweetest energy, so that was nice. That was very nice to be welcomed by that."
He mentions that taking up the role of Morales again is like being a completely new character because he such a different man than the one we saw in season 1. As for what he thinks his character has been doing all this time, Pareja says his own story is that Morales “was out there surviving and doing probably some really nasty things in order to survive,” while also admitting he had naively hoped the character was still taking care of his family.
As for what fans can expect regarding Morales in the coming weeks, Pareja says there will be some backstory shown, revealing how he came into Negan’s service.
Next: 30 Bold Predictions for The Walking Dead season 8
The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC at 8 PM CT.