Tom Payne confirms the reveal of Jesus’ sexuality on The Walking Dead
Since the debut of Jesus – Paul Monroe – on AMC’s The Walking Dead, fans have been adamant about the series sticking with his storyline in the comics, specifically concerning his sexuality. Jesus is gay in the comic books and fans hoped for him to remain true to his counterpart on paper as his character began to develop. Tom has been asked questions about this in the past and he was absolutely on board with this storyline translating to television.
In fact, during a November interview, he put it quite plainly in terms of Jesus being gay on screen. Why wouldn’t he be?
“I think that would be amazing, I know that Kirman has said about the comic books, I mean yeah, who cares? He’s a bad ass and he happens to be gay. I think that’s one of the strongest things about Robert and how he writes the comic books. That there are no…like, why wouldn’t, why wouldn’t he be and I see no reason why that would be different in the show.”
During that time, Jesus’ character was still being developed and there wasn’t an opportunity to explore that part of him further. In fact, all fans have seen of their favorite characters lately is a lot of pain and struggling. As season 7 continues, and the light at the end of the tunnel begins to shine through, the cast and crew are back to bringing life back to the characters who were berated and broken down by Negan’s reign.
During a recent interview with Comicbook.com, Tom did confirm – for certain – that we will see that side of Jesus in the series.
“Yeah, (he) will be. I can’t tell you how that might be addressed in the show or how it would come across, but yeah. Essentially he is the same as he is the comic books in that regard.”
He also spoke about the reveal of his backstory, and how he became the man he is today. Someone who still shows kindness, and a sense of hope in a world that’s low on both.
“I’m not sure there are right now, but I would obviously love that in the same way that Morgan had his episode. Kirkman talked about that in the last comic book as well, because someone brought it up and then they were talking how Negan had his one, and how it would be cool to give Jesus his own one. But at the same time, I kind of like the mystery behind it and I like people coming up with their own theories and their own reasoning for how he became the guy that he is. I think it’s a very interesting story, but they’re probably not to explore it for a while.”
While we may not get an official story on Jesus for a while, as Tom said, it is fun to draw conclusions on what made him who he is on our own. We certainly have our theories. As far as characters on the series go, he’s one of the most interesting. We’ve seen a lot of love, loss, and even joy in the characters we’ve grown to know over seasons now, but with Jesus, an entirely different part of the story was born. Not just a character, but a chance for something new completely.
We can’t wait to see how it turns out.
‘…but I knew him’
