Danai Gurira reacts to The Walking Dead's goodbye to Michonne

The Hollywood Reporter

Gurira says she wasn't involved in writing her character's exit on Sunday's episode. "I had to leave that decision in the hands of the storytellers," she tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I was the one who said I needed to step away. Very bittersweetly, I felt it was time to give more of myself to other aspects of my journey as an artist." Gurira adds: "Everything pivots on a single choice on a pivotal choice. What does your life become based on one single choice? To see that choice to save Andrea, when she was at a time of great disconnect from her humanity, we see the journey now of what it could have been. It was chilling to me, seeing Andrea fit into the story in this way. For me, it was a moment that was so pivotal for me as I was stepping into the show: choosing to embrace this woman and step into her humanity. Who would she have become if she hadn't made that choice? She exits the show as a person who would do that again, as we see in the very last frame. She helps these people she doesn't know, even if it's inconvenient to her current aspirations. But it's truthful. She's a woman with the power to help people and to alter their experiences with her own abilities and her own warriorness. She has the power to do that. She enacts it for good. That is who she has become, and that's who she exits to continue to be. I'm happy that we see her leave the way she does. She would go and find Rick. She would help people in need. She knows she has the ability to do that. It opens up a lot of things for her narrative. We'll see how that goes." Gurira says that she's "very thankful for the aspects of how (Michonne) got to evolve." ALSO: Walking Dead fans pay tribute to Michonne on Twitter.