Chandler Riggs opened up about TV dad Andrew Lincoln 's exit from The Walking Dead, coming not long after Riggs' Carl Grimes was killed off midway through its eighth season. The leading man, who played Rick Grimes for almost nine seasons, originally planned to step away in Season 8, and quietly prepared for a future exit with then-showrunner Scott Gimple as far back as Season 4. Lincoln ultimately decided to renew his contract for five more episodes under showrunner Angela Kang in Season 9, part of an exit strategy spinning off Rick into a planned movie trilogy with a less exhaustive schedule allowing for Lincoln to spend more time with family. "Honestly, I'm super happy for him. Because I'm pretty sure he spent more time on set with me than he did raising his own kids in England," Riggs said of Lincoln's exit during FAN EXPO Vancouver. "So when he was gonna be leaving the show — I knew kind of [before]." "He had told me in Season 8, after he found out that I was leaving the show.