The Walking Dead: Dead City‘s brash survivors Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) might have a tempestuous relationship at best — but AMC’s actors Morgan and Cohan have been working together for close to a decade now, and are good pals.

So, we thought it might be interesting to have their Dead City castmates ask them some hard-hitting questions during our latest catch-up. Morgan and Cohan’s co-stars, Gaius Charles (who plays Perlie Armstrong), Dascha Polanco (Major Lucia Narvaez) and Kim Coates (Bruegel), didn’t hold back.

What ensues is a conversation about karaoke — including Morgan reminiscing about visiting a Japanese karaoke spot with the cast of 2009 film Watchmen — their early days on The Walking Dead together, and how they keep their onscreen chemistry alive.

There’s also a major reveal: Morgan created Negan’s iconic two-note whistle with inspiration from his childhood. “There was no [specific] whistle [in the script], and that’s how my dad used to whistle for me when I was a little boy. On Sunday mornings, I’d hear that whistle and I knew I could come out of my bedroom,” he laughed. “You’re allowed to come out now.”

But Cohan sums it up best when talking about her dynamic with Morgan after so many years of playing within the zombie apocalypse world against someone who your character is supposed to utterly despise — but sometimes doesn’t: “We’re just so lucky [that] people want to see Negan and Maggie in the same place, even though they don’t like each other. I think there is just an indelible connection. And then it just really helps to like each other [in real life].”

As the series prepares to air its final three episodes of the sophomore season (Cohan directed the sixth episode, “Bridge Partners Are Hard to Come by These Days,” which airs on Sunday, June 8), it’ll be interesting to see how the Maggie-Negan relationship continues to evolve. Either way, we’d be happy to keep these two on our screens for a long time.

The Walking Dead: Dead City, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+