Andrew Lincoln broke Jeffrey Dean Morgan's nose during a fight on The Walking Dead

If the fights on The Walking Dead look intense and realistic, well, that’s because sometimes they actually are. In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Jeffrey Dean Morgan revealed that costar Andrew Lincoln accidentally broke his nose during while they were acting out a climactic fistfight between Negan and Rick for a scene in last December’s mid-season finale.

“I knew immediately, when the scene started and the cameras started rolling, that we were too close to each other,” Morgan, who plays Negan, told Stern. “We’re toe-to-toe. I punch, he punches, and neither of us moves. We’re both taking punches, you know what I mean? And on like the second punch, he just cracked me on the bridge of my nose. I think I dropped to a knee. But immediately, when you get hit in the nose, your eyes water. I stood up and I was like ‘Uh, dude.’ He was more upset than I was!”

Morgan previously told EW (see the video above) that one of his favorite things about playing the villainous Negan is watching the other cast members’ reactions to his character’s sadism — especially Lincoln.

“I know I’m doing my job the more mad Andy Lincoln gets,” Morgan told EW. “So if off camera he’s screaming and swearing in between takes, I know that me and Negan are doing our job, and I’ve gotten him pretty riled up. And then, of course, I have to go up and apologize and we go back to being friends between takes. But it’s been intense, and that is fun.”

Hear more of Morgan’s interview with Stern above. The Walking Dead season finale airs this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.