Jeffrey Dean Morgan knows the Hollywood struggle, having grinded for several years before finally booking his breakout roles on Grey’s Anatomy, Supernatural and Weeds.
But the actor, who most recently starred in Prime Video’s new series Sterling Point, told host Josh Horowitz on a new episode of his Happy Sad Confused podcast that his former manager fired him right before he landed these shows due to his age.
“I remember being in my mid-30s going, ‘This didn’t work out,’” the now 60-year-old recalled. “And my manager had just fired me right before I got the three shows. I’d been with her forever. And she was like, ‘You’ve aged out, bro. You missed your window.’ And she got rid of me and Max Martini at the same time and said the same thing to both of us.”
Fortunately for Morgan, but unfortunately for his manager, that’s when the actor finally received the calls every actor dreams of.
“I got Supernatural, Grey’s Anatomy and Weeds all at the same time, like within a week of each other,” Morgan told Horowitz. He added that just before he got these roles, he was “just fighting it” and “wanting to quit.”
“I’d do a pilot every now and again and [book] guest star spots and movies that people have never heard of that might take me to Comic-Con though,” he said of his experience in Hollywood before landing his breakout roles.
Morgan also recalled “always side hustling” to help pay his bills earlier in his career. “I would build fences or whatever. It usually involved hammers. There was always something to build for somebody,” he said.
He played Denny Duquette on long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy from 2006 to 2008; John Winchester on Supernatural from 2005 to 2007; and Judah Botwin on Weeds in 2005. He later scored his career-defining role, Negan, on The Walking Dead in 2016, as well as memorable roles in The Good Wife, Watchmen and The Losers, among others.