June 23, 2025
Hilarie Burton has recalled shooting The Walking Dead: Dead City scene with her husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Speaking with People Magazine Hilarie called the episode premiered on June 15, “a very hard episode to shoot.”
As the episode showed Jeffrey hallucinating his dead wife after head injury, Hilarie revealed, “What people didn't know is that, throughout this season, Jeff's dad was dying. He had died like six days before we shot this scene.”
“Watching this man that I love so much hold that grief and really have to focus at work and hold it together, I wouldn't cry except I just watched it,” she added. “It was really, really amazing to watch the person you love most in the world be able to do that.”
Hilarie noted, “He was able to channel a lot of the grief he was feeling for his dad into this episode while not letting anyone down.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s father died on July 2 after a brief illness and he received some days off from filming to go and “say goodbye to his dead” in California.
“Everyone knew that he was dealing with this tragedy, but these storylines had been written well in advance. We had no idea when we got the news that his dad was sick that we would have to film this scene within days of seeing him for the last time. And we definitely had no idea this episode was going to air on Father's Day. It was a lot,” Hilarie Burton said.