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“I don’t know if I’ve fully processed it yet,” says Steven Yeun about the untimely demise of his character on The Walking Dead. Fans could say the same thing.

Yeun appears on the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly and shares his memories about playing Glenn on television’s top-rated drama, as well as his thoughts about having to say goodbye to both the character and the show. “This is something that will hit me maybe a couple of months from now,” he says. “Or maybe it’ll hit me next year. Maybe it’ll be when I’m 45 and all of a sudden I’m just crying in my kitchen and I can’t explain why. At that point, it was beautiful in that it was so easy for me to get emotional. Personally, for me, I’m not one to cry all the time. I don’t cry much in real life. And when you do not cry in real life, the moments that you do cry are very, very fulfilling and cathartic. You realize, maybe I should cry more in general.”

Yeun also discusses whether he thinks the graphic violence was too much, what it was like for his family to have to sit through the scene (not all of them did), the importance of Glenn’s final words, as well as how he felt leaving The Walking Dead set for the final time.

“It was a really confusing time for me personally,” says Yeun of his exit. “It was a sense of relief that a chapter was closing, a sense of accomplishment in looking back and seeing all the things that I got to be a part of, a sense of sadness in knowing that I don’t get to work with these people in the same capacity again, and a sense of confusion because I didn’t know how to place a lot of it because I had to keep it secret.”

Lauren Cohan, Andrew Lincoln, and Norman Reedus also each pay tribute to their costar with personal remembrances about working with Yeun over the course of the series, while Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman honors the man who played fellow victim Abraham, Michael Cudlitz. Plus, the cast and producers tell you what to expect next on the show. (Hint: One person is not about to take this Negan business lying down.)

For more on The Walking Dead, pick up the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday, or buy it here. And subscribe now to receive a free Walking Dead tote!

For more on this week’s cover story, watch EW The Show, available now here, on the new PEOPLE/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go to PEOPLE.com/PEN, or download the free app on your Smart TV, mobile and web devices.

Image zoom DAN WINTERS for EW