Jeffrey Dean Morgan has so absolutely owned the part of Negan on The Walking Dead that it's now almost impossible to imagine anyone else playing the part.

Almost.

JDM wasn't the only actor considered to play the brutal batsman, with some other very interesting names being thrown into the hat. Here's who we could have been watching...

1. Jon Hamm

Believe it or not, the man behind Mad Men's suave Don Draper was seriously eyed to play The Walking Dead's foul-mouthed, bloodthirsty villain.

"I think Jon Hamm would be perfect," series creator Robert Kirkman told MTV, with the actor himself later confirming that he'd met with the writer a few times.

"It'd be fun," Hamm said of potentially playing Negan... But, for whatever reason, it never came to pass.

2. Henry Rollins

An interesting one this, because Charlie Adlard, the artist on The Walking Dead comic series, reportedly based Negan's appearance on actor and Black Flag singer Rollins.

"Charlie Adlard based that guy on me and so I was a shoo-in for an audition," Rollins later told Forbes.

"I went for the audition, and there were five pages of really cool dialogue with all these curses and it was beautiful, but I didn't get it."

So despite looking the spit of the comic book Negan, Rollins didn't get to beat the "Holy f**k f**king f**kity f**k" out of anyone.

3. Timothy Olyphant

Fresh off his acclaimed FX series Justified, Olyphant nearly made the trip from Harlan County to Atlanta to play Negan.

He tested for the part, but Morgan won out. For an idea of how things might have been, check Tim out in HBO's Deadwood as sweary, no-nonsense sheriff Seth Bullock.

4. Matt Dillon

'80s icon Dillon made a comeback in 2015 as the lead in Fox's bizarro TV thriller Wayward Pines and was also one of the big names who auditioned for Negan.

But when it came time for the producers to do their own version of Eeny, meeny, miny, moe? He was not it.

5. Garret Dillahunt

Dillahunt – who we've seen playing stone-cold bastards in films as diverse as Looper and The Road as well as being an actual Terminator in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – is a Walking Dead superfan and actively campaigned for the part of Negan on social media.

"It's true... I want Negan," he tweeted on November 6, 2015. "They are looking at some great actors and will make the best choice for the show." He got his own audition, too.

Just four days later AMC broke his heart by announcing Jeffrey Dean Morgan's casting.

Tough times – but things could be worse... Just ask this guy.

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