In The Walking Dead, Josh McDermitt plays Eugene, the onetime fake scientist who's come into his own after several seasons of lying and cowardice. In this interview with amc.com, he talks about Eugene falling in love with Max, his hug with Rosita, and successfully getting through to Mercer.

Q: How did it feel for Eugene to play a major part in pulling apart the Commonwealth? 
A: The entire time we've seen him on the show, he's had these forces pulling at him to stop being selfish and to start being selfless. He's at a place now where he puts others before himself, and he wasn’t in that place for a long time. So it's hard to say if he honestly would have done the same things had he not been in a relationship with Max. It's almost as if finding that love and happiness, that person who accepts him for who he is, allowed him to step back and take a look around and see what else was going on in the Commonwealth. I think he loves Max and his friends so much that he was willing to do anything for them. He wanted to make that city better, and to witness the corruption from the Miltons firsthand was eye-opening for him. It'd been building for a while, but time and time again throughout the last several seasons he's been stepping up and doing the right thing. So I was proud of him for doing that.

Q: How satisfying was it to have a hand in Sebastian's death, even if it was accidental?
A:  I was sad to see Teo Rapp-Olsson go. Teo's a special guy and it was awesome having him around. But I was happy for Eugene and honestly happy that he had the honor of playing a part in Teo's character's demise because Sebastian was such a prick. Obviously, the death was accidental. Eugene was trying to save Max. He did the same body check on a walker for Rosita. It's like his go-to move when someone's struggling with a walker. She was outside the walls in Alexandria and there was that walker that had the hard hat melded onto his head. I forget what season it was, but Eugene comes flying around the corner. I think that's his go-to move. He just flies out of nowhere like he's Rashan Gary of the Green Bay Packers and he flattens the walker with a hit-stick tackle. The fact that Sebastian got bit was just inadvertent really. I think Eugene felt bad, but was also maybe like, "Do I feel bad?"

Q: What was your reaction when you found out that Eugene was going to find love at last – a real and deep love – and that he and Max were going to become a couple? 
A: I knew it had been coming for a long time, but even so this is The Walking Dead and things change. I wondered if the writers were setting it up for several seasons with Eugene only to call a switcheroo on him. When I found out about the Stephanie decoy, I thought, "Oh, here's where they're duping me. They're screwing with him." Only to see that Max was waiting on the other end of it! I was happy for him. He'd been wanting to find love, a real genuine love, for a long time. I was obviously rooting for him to get what he was searching for, and I think he was ready for it. If he had met Max years ago, their relationship probably wouldn't have had that spark. This was the right time for him, and I was thrilled for the guy to finally get what he was searching for.

Q: How much did you enjoy acting with Margot Bingham?
A: Margot just made it easy to play and to explore the relationship, to explore the characters more. She's really funny. She makes me laugh pretty hard. It's interesting – she's always in a good mood and there's something to be said for that. Meanwhile, I'll show up to work at 4 in the morning and I'm crabby because I would rather be in bed! It didn't matter what time of day, what we were doing, Margot was happy, laughing, joking, having a great time and just always in a great mood. That just lifted the spirits of everybody, especially as we were getting towards the end of the season. She’s like the Energizer bunny. She just had all the energy in the world. She made working in those scenes with her really easy because she's just a fantastic actor but is just a cool, great person too. 

Q: You say she made you laugh. She said on Talking Dead that you make her laugh too.
A: I mean, I love to joke around. I'm a comedian and I love sketch, improv. I have a stand-up background. I'm always just looking for the joke, looking to make someone laugh and stupid stuff like that, because that's how I find my validation! But I don't really do that when we're rolling because most of the time on the show we were shooting on film and that just gets expensive if I'm screwing around. I didn't want to be that guy. But then we moved over to digital, and I started working with Margot where we’d already be laughing so it was hard to separate that. I love that she's throwing me under the bus on this, but she would make me laugh more than anybody! So I mean, I'll take ownership of my part in it, but she was making me laugh just as much!

Q: Can you talk a little bit about your scene with Norman Reedus in the church in Episode 19? It starts out humorously with Eugene putting up his fists to fight Daryl, but then it gets serious as Eugene muses about the nature of bravery. What did that scene mean to you and to have it be with Norman? 
A: I loved that scene. Reading it for the first time, I just laughed and was like, "This is a really cool scene." I think Eugene was prepared to fight Daryl to the death. He didn't want to, but it was like, "I want this guy to know exactly how serious I am about this." Daryl would have destroyed him in a heartbeat! But Eugene was showing that like, "I don't care. This is what I believe in." That was fun. Working with Norman is always great. There was a scene a few years ago back in Season 6. We did that scene when Andy [Lincoln] and Norman were in that car, they were going out, and Eugene leaned down in the window and tells them to go find sorghum and instead they find Jesus. I always like it when Eugene gets to mess with Daryl. But like I said, I do wish punches could have been thrown just to really mix it up. I know Norman would have liked that too. But to really talk about bravery and to have it take that turn and that seriousness – I like it when you see Eugene open up. There are some characters that are just pouring their heart out all the time, and then there's people who keep their cards close to their chest a bit. Eugene was that and he's slowly moving towards someone who speaks freely from his heart. He was doing that to Daryl, probably the most notorious of the people who keep their cards close to their chest. It was just a beautiful scene all around. 

Q: Eugene says goodbye to Rosita in Episode 19. What did that hug goodbye mean to him? And how was it doing that scene with Christian Serratos, who of course started on the show at the same time as you and Michael Cudlitz in Season 4?
A: Eugene and Rosita have a very simple but complicated relationship. They're like a brother and sister, and Eugene was saying goodbye to her. But as we get towards the end of the season and what that means with the end of this series, I think every scene starts to take on a little more added weight with people, even if you've only worked with them once before. In this case with Christian, meeting her for the first time with Michael, and just knowing that the three of us were going to be tied at the hip was exciting. It's very intimidating to come into this show, especially the time that we did. I mean, it was taking off at that time. There were people throughout the series that have come in by themselves and they find other people who may have shown up by themselves around the same time. I'm thinking of people like Tom Payne [Jesus]. He didn't really show up with a crew. Austin Amelio [Dwight]. People like that. I think Austin and Tom kind of got together and socialized and that sort of thing because of it. But it was great to have Christian and Michael there to take some of the weight off the intimidation factor. So to ride this thing out to the end with us together was awesome. It was also amazing to see their relationship change in so many different ways, and many, many times between these two characters. 
Like I said, every scene that you do at that point just has an added weight and an added significance. It makes it really hard, and at the same time, it makes it really easy because during any hug goodbye you're not acting. You're just playing the real emotion of what's going on inside of you. There was a moment where Eugene and Abraham hugged goodbye outside the RV before they were all captured by Negan's crew. For a long time, Michael and I talked about that being our favorite scene because it was two brothers saying goodbye to each other. Here's Michael, my real brother, and I'm saying goodbye to him and it was just a very easy scene to do and yet it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I think that's where we found ourselves in that church with Rosita and Eugene.  

Q: And how about Eugene giving his bolo tie to Rosita to give to Coco?
A: Yeah, giving away the bolo tie was twofold. One, I didn't want to give it up because I fought to get that thing. To also know that he's giving it to Coco, I was like, "Ohhhhh!" I just started crying. 

Q: What was it like acting in an episode of a legal drama in the middle of The Walking Dead? And wearing a suit and tie like when you were on Mad Men?
A: I just kept thinking of the Law & Order sound effects. Dun DUN. I love the fact that we were able to do a trial in a real courtroom and not have it be at like a campsite or something, just to show how much the show has evolved. I thought that was really cool. And it was great to wear a suit! I loved that suit. I don't know if it shows really well, but the arms were too short for Eugene. The actual suit was too big around but then the arms were really short, so it must have been this barrel-chested dude with T-rex arms that was wearing it before. I love that the arms were too short for Eugene, almost in a way to humiliate him further. Vera Chow, our costume designer for Season 11, found that awesome suit. I also got to shave down. I think I've always had facial hair on the show, and I finally shaved it down. Anytime we got to change his look was really special so it was really cool to do that. The whole courtroom scene and that whole set was real trippy. It almost didn't feel like we were doing The Walking Dead because we weren't covered in blood!

Q: I enjoyed seeing the strong bond between Eugene and Yumiko in Episodes 20 and 22. Does the relationship between your characters at all reflect your real-life relationship with Eleanor Matsuura? 
A: Oh yeah, I love Eleanor! We're pretty tight and she's just awesome. I loved that I got to work with her in a one-on-one fashion. The fact that we have a real friendship helps our scenes because we had to really show that we did have that relationship between the characters. It would have been harder to do had we not had that relationship. She was great. I wish we could have done more with the court stuff, but that's just because I wanted to hang out with Eleanor more. I think our two characters talking to each other is fun. Selfishly I wanted like half the season to be the courtroom because it was just a fun take on what we were doing!   

Q: And then Eugene got to give an impassioned closing statement too.
A: Yeah, he got to give his big speech. His big Matthew McConaughey/A Time to Kill speech. And obviously he's trying to get through to Mercer, but he was also trying to get through to the people as well.

Q: What did you think of the ending of Episode 22? It seems like Yumiko, Eugene, and Max actually did get through to Mercer.
A: I think there's some parallels between what Eugene had gone through during his time on the show and what Mercer was going through. It's like these people keep popping up and saying, "Hey, you need to step up. You need to do the right thing. You know what you have to do." And they're fighting and fighting and fighting it. Mercer has his reasons for fighting it and he has his reasons for stepping up when he did. Everyone's going to come to it when they come to it, and he's not going to go before that moment. To know that Eugene, Yumiko, and Max finally got through to him was really special because it doesn't look great for Eugene. It doesn't look great for him at all.
Mike Shaw did such a wonderful job with Mercer. There were things that from a distance you couldn't see, but if you were up close you saw some of the things that he was doing and it played so well on the camera. It was such a beautiful, beautiful minimal performance. He wasn't grandstanding and doing all that. He is a tremendous actor and I loved working with Mike.

Q: What has the show meant to you and what are you going to miss the most about it?
A: I think what I'll miss most about the show is the people. The cast, the crew, and really the fans. Fortunately, we'll still run into people. I'm actually shooting a movie right now in Atlanta and some of the crew on that are some of the crew that worked on the show, so it's great to be able to run into them and to reminisce. I went to a wedding a few weeks ago and Ross [Marquand] and [Michael] Cudlitz were there. You run into people every once in a while, but you don't have that every day. And then there’s the fans. You still run into the fans and see people. I had a person come up to me the other day and talk about how much the show meant to them. And really that's what the show means to me, is that it impacted so many people's lives. Whether you worked on it or you were just a viewer, it had an impact. It wasn't just something that you checked in on because you were bored. People gathered with their families. It transcended generations. You would hear about grandmothers watching it with their grandsons. I just love that this show had a cultural impact. People loved it. It got people to talk. There were conversations that were had because of it, and it made people feel something. There's a lot of shows that do, but I'm not sure that every show achieves that. So, it was really special to be able to be a part of that and I'm just looking forward to what's next.

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 11 Part 3 air on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. Full episodes are available to stream on amc.com (with a cable provider login), the AMC apps for mobile and devices, and a week early on AMC+. AMC+ is available at amcplus.com or through the new AMC+ app available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku. AMC+ can also be accessed through a variety of providers, including AppleTV, Prime Video Channels, DirectTV, Dish, Roku Channel, Sling, and Xfinity. Sign up for AMC+ now.