Tom Payne on Jesus and ‘The Walking Dead’ after three seasons

Instead of just leaving, he decided to kill off a couple more walkers  - except one of those “walkers” ducked  his sword swing and stabbed him with his own. Jesus died almost instantly. Welcome to the world of the Whisperers, people who dress up as walkers and walk among them.

This shocking death clued our heroes in that they have a new, confounding foe in their midst, one that turns walker hordes into something far more ominous and hard to read.

Payne, in an interview, said he had expressed frustration about Jesus' lack of character development over three seasons. In Robert Kirkman's graphic novels, Jesus gets to do a lot more fighting and is much more central in the Rick-Negan war. Payne was well aware of that.

On the show, Jesus was at best a peripheral character. There was a moment where we learn he’s gay but that aspect of him is never developed in any tangible way.

And Payne noted that despite Jesus’ super sharp fighting skills, he never directly faced off against the saviors. Instead, we only saw him battle one on one with of their own: Morgan. “It was a bit frustrating,” he said.

During his  off time (of which there was plenty), Payne learned  fight moves that he never really used until the end. “I changed my appearance for the show,” he said. “I couldn’t do any other work. I trained all the time in anticipation of some cool stuff to do.”

In the end, he said, “I enjoyed the scenes I had and the whole thing wrapped up at the right time. I got a real memorable beginning and memorable ending. Reading everyone’s reactions this morning, it seems like it landed really well. I’m super happy with it.”

So he wasn't surprised or super upset when new show runner Angela Kang had to call him with the bad news. He was quite tranquil about it.

The final scenes were shot over a span of several days on a stage to properly control the smoky environment. Earlier, when they were scenes outside and the crew flooded fields with smoke, he said it felt like the Twilight Zone. "It was creepy and weird and scary but also a lot of fun," he said. And he got to work with Ross Marquand (Aaron), Norman Reedus (Daryl) and Josh McDermitt (Eugene)

“You could feel the sense of dread throughout the episode,” he said.

And Payne proudly said he did all his own fight scenes. The producers gave him a final day party where he gave a speech but he said it wasn’t actually his final day. He had to do some pick-up scenes the next day. Then, a month later, he returned to do more reshoots, including close-ups of Aaron being super distraught over Jesus’ death.

The fans, after seeing Aaron and Jesus being best buds last episode, wondered online if there was more to their relationship in a romantic sense. It’s never addressed in the scripts, but Payne figured they may have hooked up a time or two over six years but chose to remain friends.

Payne has already been part of the “Walking Dead” convention circuit the past three years and is looking forward to commiserating with fans over his character’s death in San Jose and New Jersey. “I anticipate a lot of people,” he said, “will come up crying. We were on the same page with a lot of things.”

He is now seeking new roles and for now, he is keeping his long locks in hopes his look might draw a “Lord of the Rings”-type film or a big miniseries down the road. He isn’t quite sure he wants to do another episodic immediately.