Over a year after saying goodbye to the long-running character, Chandler Riggs says he would be interested in returning to The Walking Dead as Carl Grimes. The character of Carl Grimes, the son of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies), was first introduced in the original Walking Dead comics created by Robert Kirkman. Riggs debuted as the youthful Carl on AMC's adaptation of The Walking Dead beginning in season 1 and stayed on until the character's death midway through season 8.
Almost from the beginning, Riggs' TV depiction of Carl was criticized, and many jokes ensued as the actor aged too fast for the show's relatively slow-moving timeline. Despite these issues, the show mainly stuck with the character's arc from the comics, even depicting the gruesome moment when he loses an eye. Ultimately though, Scott Gimple and the TWD powers-that-be elected to move on from Carl and Riggs, killing the character off in dramatic fashion at the mid-way point of season 8. The decision to kill Carl was of course met with a lot of disapproval by long-time TWD comic book fans, as in the comics Carl does not die at the same point in the story but instead lives on to become an even more central character (and indeed is still alive to this day). The show made up for the loss of Carl by splitting his comics storyline between a post-time-jump Judith and Henry.
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It's been over a year since The Walking Dead removed Carl Grimes from the mix, but Riggs hasn't entirely moved on yet. Speaking to the crowd at Walker Stalker Con London, Riggs said he would be open to making a return appearance as Carl if the opportunity arose (via ComicBook.com, h/t CBR). Riggs said, "Great, yeah, it’d be a lot of fun. I’m super down, yeah. That would be awesome." In the meantime, Riggs has continued his acting career outside the TWD universe, scoring a role on the ABC show A Million Little Things.
It's of course nothing new for long-dead characters to make return appearances on The Walking Dead, and not as zombies either. Recently, Jon Bernthal, Scott Wilson and Sonequa Martin-Green all made comebacks to the show that killed them off as part of Rick Grimes' own departure episode (Rick is of course not dead and is expected to return in future Walking Dead movies). Such appearances are normally executed as part of flashbacks or hallucinations, and frequently give a little nostalgic jolt to proceedings as fans get one more chance to say goodbye to popular characters from the past.
Given his remarks, it seems Riggs would be more-than-willing to appear in a future flashback or dream sequence to put on Carl's hat and eyepatch one more time. It remains to be seen if The Walking Dead can fit in a nostalgic Carl appearance as the show moves forward into season 10 and perhaps beyond.
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Source: ComicBook.com (via CBR)