The Walking Dead’s Michael Rooker is not interested in playing Merle again

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Yesterday, we shared an interview in which actress Sonequa Martin-Green, who played the character Sasha on five seasons of AMC's The Walking Dead, said she would love to play Sasha again in an episode of the upcoming anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead, which will be 

episodic in format, and will likely focus on individual characters from the clearly expanding Deadverse, both new and old.

One person who doesn't share Martin-Green's enthusiasm for returning to the world of The Walking Dead is Michael Rooker, who delivered an unforgettable performance as Merle Dixon in the first and third seasons of the show. When ComicBook.com asked if he would like to reprise the role of Merle for an episode of the anthology series, Rooker replied, 

I'm not interested in doing a one off, you know? I wouldn't be interested in that. I'm being honest, I would not. … I wish them all the luck in the world and I love the story. That's why I wanted to do it in the beginning, you know? But I think Merle had a great send off … I don't know what we could have done to make it better, you know? And so I'm the kind of actor that sort of, unless it's obvious that the character's gonna move on, I'm not interested in revisiting, you know? I like to move on with my career. I like to move on with my work and I like to do different things."

I didn't realize how badly I want to see a Merle-centric episode of Tales of the Walking Dead until Rooker said he doesn't want to do it. It would be awesome to follow Merle for an entire episode of a show. But apparently that's not going to happen.

Rooker can be seen in the newly released film LOVE AND MONSTERS, which you can watch at THIS LINK.