Work from home! Jeffrey Dean Morgan, wife Hilarie Burton and their kids moved onto the set of The Walking Dead while filming season 10.
The actor, 54, and his family set up shop in Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) house while filming amid the coronavirus pandemic, Burton, 38, revealed in a chat with Interview magazine on Thursday, February 25.
“You don’t even understand the layers of what we were dealing with,” the Christmas Contract actress recalled of filming season 10. “There’s been so much loss this year, let me start with that. And so, doing a story about loss in this current climate was really difficult because we know people who have died this year. We’ve suffered a lot of losses this year and having to ground that in a performance and not just be like a big, huge mess on set was hard.”
Burton continued: “On top of all of that, to keep us safe for the filming, they had us quarantined living in the neighborhood that The Walking Dead shoots in. Alexandria is a little subdivision of houses with a big, huge wall, and it’s apocalyptic. There’s trash everywhere, and the water tower and all the sets that you see on television. We lived in Rick Grimes’ house. There were bullet holes in my child’s closet door.”
The Forever alum, who shares kids Augustus and George, ages 10 and 2, with Morgan, further revealed how far from luxurious their living conditions were, telling Interview there were “big, huge pieces of drywall missing from stunts that had gone awry” among other issues with the house.
“So, we were living in a real apocalypse in the real world living in a rented house in a fake apocalypse and filming the beginning of a pandemic that has been on TV for ten years,” Burton said. “There were so many layers of weirdness.”
The Rural Diaries author opened up about acting alongside her spouse via Instagram in November 2020. She gushed about Morgan’s talent and all that they’ve accomplished since they wed in 2019.
“This month I’ve gotten to act with my husband @jeffretdeanmorgan for the first time in our life together. We’ve raised kids and run a farm, done charities and bought a candy store together,” she wrote. “We’ve hosted #fridaynightin. We’ve even worked on the same show (#extant) just never in any scenes together. And when I tell you it has been a JOY, I’m saying it with years in my eyes.”
The One Tree Hill alum added, “Jeff has worked his ass off the last few years to go back and forth between GA and NY, so our kids could go to school and have stability up at the farm while he worked on @thewalkingdead. And I’d heard stories about crew members and friends from that other side of his life. Coming to work and meeting them and experiencing the familial atmosphere of this show…….I’m just a big ol crybaby!”
Morgan first appeared on The Walking Dead as Negan in season 6. Burton joined in 2020, but won’t appear until late in season 10. She will play Lucille, Negan’s wife who died of pancreatic cancer before the zombie outbreak.
The pair tied the knot in real life in 2019, 10 years after they began dating. They exchanged vows in a super-private ceremony.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC at 9 p.m. ET.
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