What These Killed Off Walking Dead Actors Look Like Today

Love him or hate him, Jon Bernthal's Shane Walsh was a very big deal in The Walking Dead's earliest seasons. The former deputy to Sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), he emerged as a leader for the survivors, including Rick's wife and son. He eventually became an antagonist for Rick once he emerged from his hospital bed alive and well and looking for answers to what happened during his coma.

Since the character's death (and second death) in season 2, Bernthal has reprised the character twice on-screen — both in hallucinations — but he's been much busier outside of the undead realm. Shortly after his departure from the show, he starred in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street as Quaalude supplier Brad Bodnick. He also landed the leading role in Mob City, from original Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont, and continued to impress in cinematic action fare like Fury, Sicario, Baby Driver, and Widows. Apart from his Walking Dead role, though, Bernthal is perhaps best known for his turn as Frank Castle in Marvel's The Punisher for Netflix. Bernthal will also soon step into another iconic TV property by starring in David Chase's movie prequel to The Sopranos, The Many Saints of Newark.

While most of The Walking Dead's deathbound cast members get a call from the showrunners to let them know their characters are being killed off, it was Jeffrey DeMunn who did the dialing about Dale's fate. The actor had a long working relationship with Frank Darabont — who had previously cast him in The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Majestic, and The Mist — and said he was "furious" about how Darabont had been "pushed out of the show" after its inaugural season, so he quit.

It didn't take long for DeMunn to reconnect with Darabont. As the director explained, "Jeff has been in everything I've ever done, so I'm always looking for the Jeff DeMunn role." Indeed, DeMunn starred as police chief Hal Morrison in Darabont's short-lived noir series Mob City. He's branched out into other TV projects since then, as well. After enjoying guest roles on popular series like Chicago Fire, The Good Wife, The Affair, and The Blacklist, DeMunn became a regular on Showtime's Billions as the central character's father, Chuck Rhoades, Sr.

Unlike most of the earliest characters in The Walking Dead, Merle Dixon did not stem from Kirkman's comics and was instead an original creation of the show. What's even more interesting is that Michael Rooker almost didn't win the role. Not only did Norman Reedus himself impress when reading for it — which is what led to eventual fan-favorite Daryl Dixon being created, by the way — but one of the show's producers had a long-simmering grudge against Rooker and initially didn't want him to win the part. He eventually did, of course, and brought one of TV's most unsettling villains to life.

Rooker had never struggled to secure work before, but things really started to take off after The Walking Dead. In fact, he may even be better known for his work in the MCU as Guardians of the Galaxy's Yondu than as Merle. He's also since starred in films like The Belko Experiment and TV's True Detective.

Before he became the survivors' bulky big brother Tyreese Williams on The Walking Dead, Chad L. Coleman was already known for his performance as Dennis "Cutty" Wise on HBO's The Wire. Since his time on Dead came to a heartbreaking end — with Tyreese perishing from blood loss after being bitten and having his arm amputated — Coleman has continued to amass impressive TV credits.

In addition to enjoying recurring roles on shows like Freakish, Arrow, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Coleman joined the cast of The Expanse as Col. Frederick Lucius Johnson, who becomes known as "The Butcher of Anderson Station" for his ruthless attack on a group of insurgents. Coleman also enjoyed a guest role on The CW's football drama All American and recurs as the alien Klyden on The Orville — not that fans would recognize him as the latter, with all of the intense makeup and mask work that goes into the character's visage.

If you don't get a chill thinking back on Gareth's behavior in The Walking Dead's fourth and fifth seasons, you might be as inhumane as he was. Sure, he talked a big game about how his basic instinct for survival is what made him turn Terminus into a full-on mouse trap for meat, but there is no doubt the guy just enjoyed slaughtering and eating people for sport by the time the survivors wandered into his lair (again, poor Bob). Never has that red machete been wielded against such a deserving victim as Gareth.

Since his brutal on-screen execution, Andrew J. West has made some interesting career moves. First, he continued in the vein of villainy as Damon on Freeform's short-lived horror series Dead of Summer, but then he showed everyone that he could totally play the good guy by becoming the adult version of Henry Mills in ABC's final season of Once Upon a Time. West has also enjoyed guest roles on shows like Justified and Under the Dome, and has starred in several indie films as well.

There are two main reasons why the death of Glenn Rhee probably wasn't as hard for fans to take as it should've been. The first is that it happened almost exactly as it had in the comics — bulging eyeball and all — when Negan took a few swings at Glenn's head with Lucille. The second is that fans had already seen him die once on the show, basically, when he was swarmed by zombies and some deceptive staging made it look like his innards had become lunch to a bunch of ravenous zeds. So, tears had already been shed for him before the show pulled a "sike" move and revealed his inexplicable escape from that attack.

After his character was actually killed off in the premiere of season 7, Steven Yeun made some big moves to capitalize on his small screen fame. First, he appeared in a few movies including Okja, Sorry to Bother You, and the critically-acclaimed Korean film Burning. Then, he started lending his vocal talents to several animated properties, including Voltron and Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia. His TV cred is only going to increase, too, as he stars in an episode of Jordan Peele's reboot of The Twilight Zone, and will voice a character in the buzzworthy animated comedy Tuca & Bertie. He's also set to perform in another property based on the comics of Robert Kirkman, the animated superhero series Invincible. Glenn might've run out of luck on the show, but his real-life counterpart is doing just fine.

There's pretty much nothing worse than what happened to poor Jessie in The Walking Dead's sixth season. On top of having long suffered through an abusive marriage and serving as some kind of weird pick-me-up prop for Rick Grimes, she was eaten alive by walkers while experiencing the anguish of watching her son get devoured right in front of her, because The Walking Dead simply has no cap on cruelty.

Luckily, that's all fictional, and Alexandra Breckenridge is doing just fine. TV fans are most likely to recognize her from NBC's hit drama series This Is Us, which introduced her as Kevin Pearson's long-time love interest Sophie (who, unfortunately, also mostly exists just to give a troubled male character some growth potential). She also had the leading role in one of Lifetime's many holiday movies, regularly voices roles for Fox's Family Guy, and leads the cast of Netflix's upcoming drama series Virgin River. You won't find Breckenridge's name on any gossip magazines, though, as the actress famously lives far away from the mean streets of Hollywood, in rural Georgia.

Last but not least, let's pour one out for poor Duane Jones. The kiddo only appeared in the very first episode of The Walking Dead, but his presence was pivotal to establishing the mood of the series. The son of Morgan Jones, Duane was constantly tormented by the presence of his mother, who was slowly desiccating outside after being infected in the zombie apocalypse. It was a bittersweet reminder to Rick that his own son may be alive out there somewhere, and that it was his duty to protect him the way Morgan did. When Rick left their home, Duane was intact, but when Morgan returned for that epic episode "Clear," we learned that his mother eventually followed and bit the boy because Morgan never put her down.

Since the show, actor Adrian Kali Turner has continued to work in films and TV, with appearances in Bad Teacher, Arrested Development, and the pilot for Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. Turner has grown up quite a bit since his days on The Walking Dead, and even recently shared a photo of himself holding a little Duane doll for old time's sake.