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Yeah, I felt awful. I felt really, really bad. It was funny ‘cause when the car takes her away, she’s like, “God, I wonder what’s gonna happen.” I go, “You know, I was talking to everybody and they were telling me that you shave your head. I don’t even know, all I know is your head is completely shaved bald.” And she was looking at me like, “Are you serious?” I go, “Yeah, you’re a cue ball!” So all day I was teasing her, telling her she should change her band name to Little Bald Beth. I kind of just toyed with her all day, I thought it was funny. I don’t think she thought it was funny, but I thought it was really funny.
Norman Reedus answers - “Emily is such a sweet, soft-spoken lady. Was it weird blowing up at her in “Still”?
Norman Reedus Interview for So It Goes by James Wright
It has been a long time coming, but Norman Reedus is at peace. In 1991, the actor was earning seven dollars and fifty cents an hour working in a busted Harley repair shop in Venice Beach, California. He’d followed a girl from Japan over to LA, but it didn’t work out. Neither did the job. One night he found himself angry and drunk at a party in the Hills and - Hollywood being Hollywood - his abusive tirade won him a part in a play. Fast-forward twenty years and a career’s worth of roles in dark, violent and barely seen independent films, Reedus was a man in he shadows, flirting with photography, art and the idea of giving up acting for good. And then it all changed. AMC’s The Walking Dead - the critically acclaimed show about survival in post-apocalyptic, zombie-ridden Georgia - has transformed Reedus, at forty-six into one of the most recognisable faces on American television. His poncho-wearing, crossbow-toting hillbilly with a heart, Daryl Dixon, looks like it could be just the start.
James Wright: As we’re having this conversation the next episode of The Walking Dead is about to air. It’s playing out its fifth series and has become the number one show on US television. Back in 2010 it would have been difficult to predict that a show about a zombie apocalypse would eat the viewing figures of the NFL.
Norman Reedus: I don’t know if you can predict anything to be that big a success. I knew it was good. I knew it was cool. I knew I wanted to be a part of it. For me personally, it had everything. Reading all the pilots that year in LA, everything seemed dull. Average. But our pilot stayed with me. It stuck out as something so different, so unique. My character Daryl isn’t even in the comic books, so whether it was for one episode or ten, I just wanted to be part of the show in some way.
Compared to a number of the other ‘main’ characters, Daryl has noticeably fewer lines, but remains one of the most complex and layered of the cast. What were your initial thoughts about how to ensure Daryl didn’t fall prey to becoming a negative Southern stereotype?
I had lots of ideas about that. There were certain scripts in the beginning that had me taking drugs and saying racist lines. I fought not to say them. I wanted to have this kid grow up in a world of racism and drugs - the whole hillbilly-redneck thing - but have a slight chip on his shoulder about it, so he chooses not to say those things and not to take drugs. I wanted him to grow up and hate drugs. If he didn’t, he would have been just like his brother Merle. Instead I’m little brother Daryl, a kid who wants to stand on his own two feet. In terms of the fewer lines, I don’t think more necessarily equals a more popular, interesting character - there are certain people in the show who are the ‘storytellers’ as a result of the lines they speak. For others, their actions speak louder than words. Daryl is a man of few words.
He begins as an outsider: damaged, mistrusting and mistrusted, but he wrestles with his inner demons to gradually become a leader of the group and perhaps the ultimate survivor.
It’s worth nothing that we were very careful about how change came about. He’s one of the leaders of the group now, but he had to earn the group’s trust. It’s more interesting to have someone face south and slowly turn north than to be facing north the whole time. It’s that turn, that 180 degrees, that makes characters more interesting, and wee found a whole bunch of those moments for Daryl. We’re still finding them. For instance, it’s more interesting to watch a boy meet a girl and fumble through the moment trying to make it work not knowing what they’re doing, than just have some dude throw a girl up against a tree in the moonlight.
That was a conversation that Frank and I had at the end of the first season at David O.Russell’s house party where he said, “I had this idea about Daryl being gay, what would you think about it?” I said, “Go for it - fuck yeah - that’s complicated as hell, let’s do that.” The storyline never really went any further than that, but I always thought it was an interesting guideline.
Frank Darabront once said that he’d be interested in you playing Daryl gay. Did the idea ever translate into how you developed the character?
Looking back at your filmography, there’s obviously an attraction to darker subject matter. To what extent have you let your personal tastes in film, art and music guide your career choice?
I’m still taking the same photos I used to take, in the same style - making the same artwork I used to make before this job. But in terms of the darkness in me personally, I guess I’m less selfish than I used to be. I give a lot more up now, I do a lot more charity work. I think because I’m now so grateful for my life, it’s made me a more grateful person towards the outside world as well. Plus I’m a father. I’ve grown and I’ve matured a lot in the last ten teas, the last five especially. The aesthetic of what I’m attracted to and photograph, and what projects I’m drawn to are still the same though.
Right, so you were never tempted to do a Christopher Walken - one of your favourite actors - and take a dud part like he did in America’s Sweethearts?
You have a lot of people working with you who say, “Norman, you’re not doing that movie - it’s a really bad idea,” and I said, “But come on, there are circus midgets!” Of course I don’t think I can be the brooding dark murderer freak all the time! It would be boring to do that every single time but am I attracted to the dark murderer freak dude? Yeah, that’s my favourite! But I don’t try to do just that. I think I’ve murdered somebody in everything I’ve ever done. I can’t do that forever.
You’ve been quoted a number of times saying, “I like it when devils cry and angels stab you in the back.”
To play a bad guy who’s just a bad guy all the time is not very interesting; playing a bad guy who has puppy eyes and is depressed and crying on the other hand… Equally, to play a good guy who is wholly good is boring, but to play a good guy who wants revenge is interesting. It’s that tussle I like.
What’s the story with the demon tattoos on your back?
I was eighteen and I was doing bad things - in a bad headspace all the time. This psychic lady once told me I had these two demons that were whispering in my ears the whole time and making me do bad things. At the time, I just wanted to say, “Hey, I see you - I know you’re there.” There was something going on in my head when I was young. You get tattoos for various reasons when you’re young and insane.
Do you feel that on some level, Daryl’s growth as a character over the course of the show has in any way mirrored that change in you personally?
Absolutely. The character has affected me on so many different levels - we shoot the show way out in the woods in Georgia after all. I’m in the woods for eight months of the year and it’s a very different life to being in New York all year long. There’s no running around auditioning to try and find new jobs for one thing! To be honest, I’m less wild. It’s really calmed me down as a person and done wonders for my head. I now appreciate my job as an actor more and am a happier person as a result. It’s like any job; if you like your job, you like going to work. I’ve been doing that for five years now.
You live in rural Georgia right?
Yeah - an hour and a half south of Atlanta, out in the woods.
Has it become home?
It has. I love Georgia. I really love it there. I ride my motorcycle with the sun coming up and look out for deer on the way to work. It’s special.
Given the fact you almost made the decision to walk away from acting after close to thirty films and music videos (for Radiohead, Bjork and Lady Gaga amongst others) has the success of the show somehow reminded you why you chose to act in the first place?
It has, yeah. To have five years to play and build a character is a rare, rare thing. You can have little tics that become storylines, scripts and parts of characters. To have that for five years - it’s kind of amazing. In Hollywood, you do a movie and think you’re all headed in the same direction, but there are a lot of cooks in those kitchens and editing is a funny thing, not to mention market testing and that whole world. When you’ve been doing a television show this long, with this many people, you know you’re headed in the same direction. That’s a blessing right there.
The calibre of writers and actors involved in TV shows has improved so drastically over the past decade. We still seem to be in that so often discussed ‘Golden Age of Television’ with the best talent now split between film and television. Could you imagine working in television beyond The Walking Dead?
I wouldn’t say that I would never do another television show. At the same time, I’m doing films. I’ve got at least four or five films coming out soon. Doing a John Hillcoat film - that’s top tier right there. An amazing guy to work with, and an amazing cast of characters. I guess it will always come down to the project. There are really good movies out there and pretty crappy movies, and really good television and really crappy television.
Dixon’s Vixens, Norman’s Nymphos, Daryl’s Dolls and Reedusluts. Breast implants donated, babies named after you and countless Daryl tattoos. Why do you think Daryl, above all other Walking Dead characters, has inspired such a global following of female fans?
(laughs) Ummm… There are some boys in there too… Look, he’s the guy that’s not supposed to win. He’s the guy that didn’t have things going for him his whole life and he’s the guy now in this situation who’s willing to take a stance, with his heart on his sleeve and fight for things, and he’s learning what to fight for. He doesn’t come with a whole preconceived idea of what’s good and what’s bad and what’s right and what’s wrong. He’s learning as he’s going along, which is a very human, manly thing to do - to be open to things and fight for those he believes in. This dude is the underdog - the guy from the wrong side of the tracks. Nobody even liked him to begin with. He’s finding his sense of self-worth through these people and weird circumstances and I think that’s admirable and honourable and it’s impressive - that’s the type of guy I would want to be and I hope I turn into.
You book of photographs The Sun’s Coming Up… Like a Big Bald Head documents your travels over the years. The shots of the maximum-security Russian prisons are particularly powerful. What was the story behind those images?
I did a film in Moscow and St Petersburg with Andrey Konchalovskiy. He’s like the Russian Scorsese and very well connected. We had access to certain things that a lot of people would never ever get the chance to see, so we shot a lot of the movie inside a maximum-security prison and would walk around the exercise year. There’s a shot with a hand hanging out the window that I took when I was working out in the yard. It was eerie, so scary. I never want to go to prison in Russia, ever.
It is important to have that creative outlet outside of acting still?
100 per cent. I’ve always taken pictures - on film and on digital. When I was trying to learn bass guitar, my friend who’s a bass guitarist said, “Pick the one you like to hold in your hand, you’re going to play with it more if you like to hold it.” I’ve done that with my cameras my whole life. If something feels good I’ll take it with me. If I find another one, I take it with me. I’ll always continue to do that.
[mod note: we made some small changes to fix typos, otherwise this text transcription is all from conphys! Scans can be found here.]
Norman Reedus: " I have a titanium glance" (translation of Italian Vanity Fair March Issue)
[Mod note: Special thanks to ludegio, who provided this translation for us, from the original text in Italian to English. We’ve tweaked some minor points for clarity. Scans are available here.]
Norman Reedus: “I have a titanium glance” by Marco De Martino
He hunts zombies in a post apocalyptic series, but also in life he doesn’t miss anything done. From the encounter with a super model, to the clash with a truck “sent” by REM that left a metallic memory.
He’s coming back to Chattanooga, Georgia, to shoot another season of The Walking Dead, the zombie apocalypse that has made him famous as Daryl Dixon, the survivor who kills living dead with a crossbow.
"I have lived there for five years, for about eight months a year and it is great: every morning I get up, I take the Harley and go on the set," says Norman Reedus.
"We work in the oppressive, humid, and hot; and we are always covered in mud and blood. So much, that often we don’t even need makeup, even black eyes or scars, as we get hurt all the time. But it is a joy, it’s like being children again."
Do you miss the zombies in the not-shooting periods?
Yes, but at the same time I feel the rush to recover time that I can devote myself. I make films, I go to the gym, I enrolled in any course.
Right now I have a trainer who, just yesterday, taught me the squat, a yoga teacher, two psychologists who take care of my mind. I also began studying Kabbalah, and yesterday when a friend told me that there was a voodoo holy woman, from New Orleans, in the city I immediately said ”Can I meet her?”
In the New York restaurant where we meet, the appointment with Norman Reedus is transformed into a dinner interrupted by occasional greetings of neighboring tables.
He is an actor of cult films like Six Ways To Sunday with Debbie Harry, but also a director of short films, painter and photographer. He has a 15-year-old child with supermodel Helena Christensen, with whom he was together for five years starting in 1998. He is a model himself. Reedus has such an ability to make everything cool that we are not surprised he managed to do it with the zombie hunter that made The Walking Dead series of the most-watched American television.
The surprise is that instead of being a snob, a bit artist, a bit playboy, he is so simple that, when at one point he goes away for a moment, he entrusts to me his phone: he wants me to watch the music video shot with the punk band The Bots. When he returns he tells me that Lena Dunham also had to be in the clip, the creator and star of the series Girls, and she will soon be at his side in the movie Sky by the French Fabienne Berthaud.
"Too nice, Lena. I texted her to ask if she if she would dance on a bed in the desert for my video, and she replied: ‘I am a very passionate dancer.’ Then we have not done anything, oh well."
You’re already appeared in many music videos.
There was a time when David Fincher and other film directors had made an agency specializing in music videos, and they passed my name. I appear in Strange Currencies by REM, in Violently Happy by Björk, and I also worked with Radiohead, Keith Richards, Lady Gaga. But the video that I showed you is the first that I have directed.
Do you have other projects as a director?
Yes, a film about the true story of a transsexual held captive in Harlem. But there was also a time when I thought I could just direct, that my acting career was over, that I would be disfigured after the terrible car accident I had.
How did it happen?
I was in Berlin for the Film Festival, and Michael Stipe had invited me to see the R.E.M. concert. The car in which I was traveling was hit by a truck and I ended up against the windshield. The amazing thing is that the Tir was the one that brought the music instruments of R.E.M. in Frankfurt.
Now we joke about it, and Michael says to me: “If you don’t come to the appointment, I run over you with a truck. “
You do not even have a scar on your face.
It’s been ten years, and when it is very cold or very hot the headache comes: I have a reconstructed titanium eye socket. From this tragedy, however, was born a movie. During the days of hospitalization I got the idea to tell what was going through my head while Miles Davis was playing (editor’s note: short “Meet Me In Berlin,” released in 2006).
Your son is called Mingus, another reference to jazz?
Sure, because when I was with Helena I listened to much music of bassist Charlie Mingus.
What was it like being together with one of the most famous supermodels ever existed?
Beautiful, and daunting. Now that there are no more supermodels than there were, it’s easy to forget it but they were like rockstars: when we walked into a room everyone turned, someone almost choked on their food. For me, I knew nothing of that world, it was like taking a crash course.
And what have you learned?
Get out of the way, because the models at that level always work and are like bulldozers, very determined. Especially someone like Helena who is also involved in charity and photography. Maximum admiration: in her place, I would not have endured all that attention.
You have been a model.
Briefly, a Prada campaign that was seen much more than all my films put together. As a model I’m not much: too short, too big. There is no comparison with Helena.
How is the relationship now that you have separated?
Excellent, and therefore managing our son is also easy, especially now that he is 15 years old. The only problems are logistical: Where is the biology book? or The sweatshirt is in your house? But I feel a little bad for Mingus: having two famous parents, he is constantly thrown off from social networks because there are a lot of fake profiles with his name.
What he thinks of his father, the “zombie hunter”?
At first he thought it was very cool. Now it is a bit tired of all those who stop for a picture: he is always very polite, but clearly annoyed.
How do you explain the success of your character?
In the comic that the series came from, Daryl did not exist: it was written thinking about me and grew gradually. At first everyone wanted him to have a love story, but I opposed, saying that we had to wait. There’s an episode in which I’m kissed and I flinch. For me it was a natural reaction, but the writers came up with the idea of inventing the presence of abuse in my past.
What strikes you about the success of Daryl?
The passion that it inspires: there are cancer associations named after him. And then the drawings, paintings, poems that I get. I gathered all the material in the book Thanks For All The Niceness. To me it’s like a kind of Kickstarter: I hope for some fans to be the beginning of a career.
Are you afraid of being too identified with the character?
You’re asking if I fear that this is the Fonzie moment of my career? No, because since I started this series I’ve done five movies. And all the colleagues who leave the series are recycled immediately.
It’s easy to die with many zombies around.
Yes, and it is also traumatic, because you know you’re going to die only that morning when it happens. As in life, you always think that you have more time.
And if it were to happen to you, how would you like to die?
I walk down a hill, getting smaller. At one point, a dog runs next to me, and then we disappear together, on the horizon.
'The Walking Dead's' Norman Reedus: I Want to See Daryl Get Mean Again
Still sighing with relief that Norman Reedus’s Daryl survived The Walking Dead Season 5 finale, and thus you can abandon your rioting plans? So is the actor, who tells Yahoo TV he not only doesn’t want to see Daryl die, ever, but he’s already got an alternative idea, should Daryl ever need to splinter off from Rick’s group.
The actor, who has three big-screen releases ( Sky, Triple 9, and Air, a sci-fi thriller produced by Robert Kirkman) on the horizon this year, also talks about how he thinks we’re making too much fuss about Daryl’s new friendship with Aaron, how we should be afraid (very afraid) of the Wolves, the status of Andy Lincoln’s beard (which would be a great band name), and what’s on his Daryl wish list for Season 6 (hint: anger).
It was huge for Daryl this season that he forged this friendship with Aaron, someone he didn’t know very long, very well, but who he trusted. Why do you think the two of them bonded so quickly?
You know, how good of friends are they? You know what I mean? I mean, what makes people say they’re such buddy-buddies? They really haven’t done any buddy-buddy stuff. It’s just going on a run. I think Daryl’s open to the possibility of friendship. I don’t know if he’s full-blown friendly yet. I think he trusts Aaron. I think he believes that Aaron’s a good guy, he means well, and he could be trusted. People asked me, “Why would Daryl sacrifice his life for Aaron?” [when they were surrounded by walkers in the car], and I’m like, “What makes you think Daryl’s going to die?” Daryl just thought… he was going to take the heavy load and go first. He thought both of their chances would be better if he was fighting and Aaron running for the fence. I don’t necessarily think he was laying down his life for this dude, and I don’t necessarily think that they’re best friends yet.
I think you just hit on it… Daryl trusts Aaron much more easily than he usually trusts people, and that’s a big thing for him.
Yeah. We’re walking through the woods and he’s telling me, “You’re such an outsider. We’re so similar, we’re both outsiders, for different reasons.” I never really looked at him in the face when he’s saying all that stuff. He’s just starts saying it to the back of my head. I’m still tracking, and I’m just kind of hearing him out. Everyone’s past is individual, and every time someone says, “Oh my God, my story’s the worst story ever,” you finally go, “Yeah, well, you don’t know… you don’t know my story.” Everyone’s story is most important to themselves. When he’s saying all that, I don’t know that Daryl goes, “Oh, we’re definitely on an even playing field now because people are angry because you’re a gay man.” I don’t think that’s the same thing as stabbing your brother in the face, you know what I mean? But I do feel like Aaron’s actions speak louder than words, and everything he says has been honest and everything he’s said has come true, so I do trust him, and I do like him. I’ll trust him until I don’t trust him again. He definitely has the I-trust-you pass right now.
Daryl, Morgan, and Aaron are the only ones who encountered the Wolves and know some of, at least, what they’re capable of. Is Daryl thinking at this point that they might be coming at Alexandria? Does he have that vibe about them?
I said in another interview, it’s a bunch of Daryls gone south. That would be in context of the rest of the things that I was saying, that there’s a difference between the Wolves and the Terminus bad guys, because the Terminus bad guys kind of hid behind false promises and had a cowardly way of being bad guys. They carry you to salvation and then they trick you. The Wolves, I don’t think they’re tricking anyone. I think they’re straight up coming at you, “We are bad guys, let everyone know we are bad guys.” Also, they’re on the move like Daryl. They’re not hiding behind the structure, they’re out in the woods tracking people to kill them and take them over. They’re hunters, which is what I meant by a bunch of Daryls.
It makes them even scarier than say Gareth, because you’re thinking, “If this is what they’re telling you they’ll do and showing you they’ll do, what are they actually going to do?”
I think they’re way scarier than Gareth! I think that somebody who hides and just stabs you in the back, there’s a weakness to them. You can probably crack those people much earlier. I can see Gareth crying at the end of a gun, “Please don’t kill me. I didn’t mean to eat all your friends.” The Wolves, they kind of have another feeling… they’re just going to go shoot me… and they’re not going to cry if using a pistol.
Speaking of deaths, your chain of death in the finale was just awesome.
Thank you. I was very excited to see that chain whipping thingy, because you kind of do it, and then you leave it up to Victor [Scalise] of the special effects team. They tell you how cool it’s going to look and you’re like, mmmm… the chain doesn’t really go to the actors’ faces, it’s about a foot short just in case I accidentally whip them in the face. You just kind of picture a certain Indiana Jones thing going on. I was very excited. I should send him a bottle of champagne or something.
I have to ask for an update on Andy Lincoln’s beard: Is it still in your fridge?
It’s still in the fridge in a Ziploc bag. It’s still there, and it’s not going anywhere.
Has Andy asked for it back?
I’m not giving him his beard back. He knows better than that.
Some fans tweeted us questions they wanted us to ask you. Melissa at MeTV says we know Daryl can’t die (because… rioting), but if there were circumstances in this world that could bring Daryl down, what would they be?
You know, I don’t want to see him die. If Daryl would ever leave the show, I would want him to just walk off into the distance and have like a little dog or a little wolf puppy who just starts following him up over a hill. Some people would be like, “Whatever happened to that guy?” It would be like The Legend of Billy Jack or something. Like, whatever happened to that guy? But I don’t even want that to happen. I really like Daryl.
That sounds like a good spinoff though.
Yeah. Whatever Happened to That Dude?
@DamonCarter10 wants to know what you think Daryl’s relationship with Morgan will be.
I imagine Rick told Daryl about Morgan. That was such a thing early on in the show, with the walkie-talkies back and forth. I’m sure he described Morgan, explained who this guy was. Thinking about the show, you see things happening, but there’d be a lot of downtime. If you think about it, there’s a lot of things you don’t see us do. Rick and Daryl are really close, so I imagine he would have told him about Morgan. I think as soon as Morgan shows him that map, and there was that sort of quizzical look on his face like, “I’m lost”… it’s obvious he’s not lost. He’s looking for this dude. Then you see that Daryl looks back at Morgan, I think that he knows exactly who he is.
Oh, you think Daryl knew who Morgan was as soon as he saw the map?
Absolutely.
That map, and how it circled back from the first half of the season was clever.
Yeah. That’s Scott Gimple. He’s a genius, and he’s so good at tying things together. It was like Lennie [James] said on Talking Dead: “There’s a whole bunch of stuff he’s doing and he doesn’t know what they mean, but he knows they mean something.”
Which we should always assume, that everything on the show means something, or will at some point.
Everything. Absolutely everything.
@facingbackwards tweeted, “Saw a good deal of speculation that @wwwbigbaldhead was at risk bc his ‘character arc was complete.’ Disagree?”
[That’s] way wrong. How do you say his character arc is complete? What is that? Where would that end? If you’re going to take that stance, you can say that about everyone on the show… I’m not in the comic books, so it’s not like there’s a beginning, middle, and an end.
What do you want to see happen for Daryl? What is something that you’re dying for them to do with him?
I want him to get mean again. I want him to get super angry at something, which I’m pretty sure, it will happen eventually.
You guys head back to Georgia soon for Season 6. Are there big vacation plans in your future before you start next season?
I’m just going to throw my cat in the car and drive back to Georgia. That’s my vacation, to drive back to Georgia. It’s pretty fun. He sits on my lap, and we just hit the highway.
Norman Reedus crashes college class to surprise students
Reedus talked to fans about the show, warmly referring to the cast as "family," and immediately recalled his favorite episode. Unsurprisingly, it's "Still" (Season 4, Episode 12) — or the one where Beth and Daryl drink moonshine and everyone realized they belonged together forever.
As expected, the students tried to get any possible Walking Dead secrets out of Reedus, but the actor claimed that he had none to spill.
"They're like Fort Knox," he said of the real secret keepers, the executive producers.
True to Daryl Dixon's soft-spoken character, Reedus admitted that he doesn't actually memorize lines until the day of filming. While he and his character also share the same interest in weaponry and motorcycles (and all-black wardrobe), their ways of handling a zombie apocalypse are rather different.
"I'd probably break into a Four Seasons and watch South Park," Reedus said, matter-of-factly. When asked how his character would die if he had the choice (and if the producers would want to disappoint his many fans), he calmly said Daryl would simply walk off into the distance, on a hill, and a puppy would appear out of nowhere and follow him.
"People would just be like, 'What happened to that guy?'" he said. Though we're pretty sure the Internet would not let that one go, considering "If Daryl goes, we riot," is the meme-like battle cry created by his fans.
The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus talks Daryl's big season finale
[SPOILER ALERT: Read on only if you have already watched Sunday’s “Conquer” season finale of The Walking Dead.]
[mod note: that’s season 5′s finale]
It looked like it might be curtains for Daryl Dixon when he and Aaron unwittingly unleashed an army of zombies and then took refuge in a car surrounded by the flesh-eaters in Sunday’s season finale of The Walking Dead. But they fought their way to freedom—with the help of Rick’s old friend Morgan. We talked to star Norman Reedus about the finale, as well as the season as a whole, and what he knows about next season of The Walking Dead.
I noticed a few of these scenes with you in the finale were actually filmed for the episode beforehand and they held them for the finale, I guess because they had an extra 30 minutes to play with here. Were you aware before you saw it that those scenes had moved?
Yeah, I had thought that was going to happen. And [showrunner Scott Gimple] is so good at what he does mapping out these episodes and I knew it would be great.
One of those original episode 515 scenes was of you riding your bike. We haven’t had a chance to chat about your new motorcycle. What’s it like riding that thing?
Oooooh, it’s cool. It’s made by this company called Classified Moto, who were friends of mine ahead of time, and it’s so cool. It’s such a powerful little dirt rocket. I love it. It’s really cool the way they designed it. It looks like a Frankenstein motorcycle and it’s completely fun. I love it.
Let’s talk about that big scene at the food depot with the zombies pouring out of the booby-trapped trucks. I feel like we haven’t had a huge group of walkers like that in a while. Is that exciting when you get to film with that many?
Yeah, I really like it when we have a bunch of zombies at once. It’s funny too because you have lots of Greg Nicotero’s team, like Andy [Schoneberg] back in the back with his hand up a torso. So you open up that truck and look—and there’s Andy in the corner with his hand up a thing! It’s really fun and you get all those people on set at the same time and there’s a lot of energy. I love that type of fight or flight thing going on.
What about when Daryl and Aaron get into the car and are surrounded? This show loves to play with being trapped in small, confined spaces, like the revolving doors, or when you and Beth were in the trunk. What was filming that scene with Ross Marquand like?
I really like working with Ross. He’s such a good actor and it was interesting—it’s a good moment between us. I don’t think Daryl is going to say, “You know what? You go handle it.” He’s just the type of guy that is going to be like, “You know what? Let me do it.” He’s always the guy taking out the trash and doing the heavy lifting. And then he stands up and he’s like, “No, we’re going to do it together.” I think it’s a really good Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid moment.
Why was Daryl ready to sacrifice himself for Aaron there? Is that just the way he is—just like, somebody’s got to do it and it may as well be me?
A little bit of that, and I don’t know that he thought he was going to die. [Laughs] You know what I mean? He was probably like, “This might hurt a bit,” but I think he thinks he’s going to make it out, or at least have a better chance of making it out than Aaron. He is kind of that guy though. Even early on in seasons, like when we cut open that one walker looking for the remains of Sophia, it was like, “Nah, let me get my hands dirty. I have a bigger knife. I’ll cut it open.” He is kind of that guy, but I really like that moment between the two of them. I gotta say it’s like a Thelma & Louise kind of thing. I really liked it.
Daryl says at one point when they are trapped in that car and surrounded by walkers that “Even now this feels more like me. That’s pretty messed up, huh?” This goes back to what you were saying earlier when we talked a few weeks ago about Buttons the horse, right? Some animals just need to be out in the wild.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s tough for Daryl to be in those new surroundings and in Alexandria. It just doesn’t feel like him. Like Buttons. Buttons was running free and doing fine and somebody had to tame him and help him and it ended up costing him his life, so Daryl is that guy. He likes to keep moving. He’s like a shark.
This was your first chance to share a scene with Lennie James, who plays Morgan. What was that like?
I remember seeing Lennie in the opening episode on the first season and I was like, “Who is that guy? He’s great!” Everyone had talked about working with him and how awesome he is. And the then he came back in that one episode [“Clear”] where he sort of bugged out on Rick and I wasn’t around. I wasn’t shooting scenes during that time so I didn’t get to meet him and I was really excited to meet him. I met him once at an AMC event, but we were both in suits and it was a totally different thing. I told him how much I admired him as an actor and was excited to work with him, so it was really nice to get to work with him here.
What’s Daryl’s reaction when Morgan takes out that map with Rick’s name on it?
I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. He doesn’t know until that moment and then immediately he’s like, this guy’s following us. This guy has other things in his head. It wasn’t so much of a shock. It was more like, “Oh, I see you. I know what you’re doing.” He’s holding his cards tight to his chest too, so there’s got to be history there. And if you think about all this time that those guys have been together—Daryl and Rick and the rest of them—he must have mentioned Morgan and the walkie-talkie in earlier seasons, so I think he’s got a good idea of who he is when he hands him that map.
You show up at the very end of that final scene when you bring Morgan back to Alexandria. How much did you get to see of that final scene with Andy’s speech and everything that followed? Were you on set for all of that?
Oh, yeah. I was there. And that final moment too, Rick had said to us, if they can’t change their ways we’re just going to take this place. So I think that’s what’s going on in Daryl’s mind when he sees that happen. He’s like, “Alright, we’re taking the place.” And it kind of ends like that.
Now that the season is over, let’s put a bow on it. How would you sum up the journey you guys took this season as opposed to past ones? How do you feel about season 5 in total?
What a good season. This whole season has been so stellar. The writing, the acting, the directing—everything about it. It’s been, in my opinion, one of our finest seasons to date. It’s a feeling of accomplishment and we worked really hard on this season and there were a lot of balls in the air and a lot of people really putting a lot of hard work into this season. And it was a different season for us. It was a complicated season—the storylines were complicated and there were new characters and new locations. All of us have a sort of a collective high five and a satisfactory breath coming out of us. It was a challenge and we were very, very proud of this season.
It’s interesting what you say about all the storylines because there were so many that were woven together in this finale. Not just an A story and a B Story, but also C, D, E, F & G.
Oh, so many! And so many little subtle storylines within the storylines that will play out later or meant something in the past. There were a lot things going on this season. It was very complicated.
Gale Anne Hurd told me last week that Scott Gimple and the writers had recently pitched out the first 8 episodes of season 6. Have they told you anything yet?
No. I’m waiting. I can’t wait to hear. I’m excited. I have theories what’s going to go on in season 6 and even 7, but every time I do that I’m wrong. I shouldn’t even say them.
Walking Dead star Norman Reedus shares behind-the-scenes intel on Daryl's big episode
It was a important episode for Daryl Dixon Sunday night on The Walking Dead. Alexandria’s brooding outsider finally accepted both a dinner invitation and a job in the community to join Aaron as a recruiter. But his most important and symbolic move may have been refusing to take one of the guns that Carol had smuggled out in case they needed to use them against their seemingly hospitable hosts. We talked to the man who plays Daryl, Norman Reedus, about all of that and more, including the loss of Buttons the horse…R.I.P.
Before we get into Daryl and his evolution in this episode and maybe softening his stance a bit here on this new society and his role in it, why has he been so standoff-ish with these new people? Is it because of Terminus and Woodbury, or is that just Daryl’s natural way, to be uncomfortable and untrustworthy of strangers?
He’s pretty conservative and I don’t think he trusts people right off the bat. There’s another element to it: I don’t think Daryl would have liked living in a suburban housing development evenbefore the zombie apocalypse. Daryl’s the type of guy who likes to be on the road. He likes to keep moving. I don’t know that this town, if he’s feeling it—especially right off the bat. It all seems too easy. I know a lot of their group wants to find refuge and find a place to put their hat, but I don’t know if Daryl wears a hat.
He doesn’t go to this cocktail party that Deanna’s having, but he does agree to go have dinner with Aaron and Eric. Why does he accept that invitation?
Spaghetti is spaghetti, you know what I’m saying.[Laughs] I think that he trusts Aaron. There’s something about it where he trusts him, but I also don’t think Daryl has anywhere to go. Everyone is doing this and they’re excited about this party and they’re interested in seeing who these people are. I don’t think Daryl feels like he belongs there and that’s part of the reason that he’s so hesitant about the whole town. He feels like he’s not one of them and he’s basically gone through this stuff with his own family, so to speak. He’s always got a chip on his shoulder and I think he’s going to that chip-on-his-shoulder ways.
How much fun was that to slurp up that spaghetti?
I ate a lot of spaghetti that day. [Laughs] That’s one thing about this show—every time I eat I just shove food in my face so after about five takes I’m just like, bleachhhhhhhhh. I can’t even stand up. But it was pretty good spaghetti, I have to admit. They did a good job.
So Daryl then accepts the job of replacing Eric as a recruiter. This is kind of the perfect job for him, isn’t it, in that he can enter on the fringes of the group and do something for the community while also being totally out on his own and tracking and stuff?
Yeah, I mean, Daryl belongs out in the woods. That’s the type of animal he is. It’s a lot like what Joe said: The saddest thing is seeing an outdoor cat thinking it’s an indoor cat, and Daryl is definitely an outdoor cat. So it’s a perfect job for him.
How big a moment is it when he does not accept that gun from Carol at the end? How symbolic is that?
It’s pretty symbolic. As hesitant as Daryl is, he still wants to give it a try. He’s that type of kid that always has a family and then he gets in with the family and the family is taken away. Everything is just sort of out of arm’s reach for Daryl, but he’s still hopeful. He’s still reaching his hand out. He’s just that guy that has to learn his lessons over and over again, and I think that lesson of family and community and friendship is something he’s just not grasping. But, man, it’s like the end of the world—maybe it’s there. So let’s not plot against them yet.
And he also can feel where things are going with the group and he can see—like in the last episode where Rick was like, “We’ll just take this place”—it’s not even a dun-dun-dun-dun moment for Daryl. It’s just “Yeah, of course we’ll take this place. But let’s not start shooting guns right now.” It’s kind of like when we had to go get Emily [Beth] back. Tyreese didn’t quite know, so why give that guy a loaded gun when bullets are going to be flying around? It’s kind of that same thing. Let’s not jump to anything. Let’s just see and give it a minute.
Tell me about filming the stuff with Buttons the horse. You got close to wrangling Buttons, but then the zombies came and it all went bad.
That’s was interesting because the thing with Buttons is—my last line to Aaron after he had to put down the horse was supposed to be more of a “C’mon, man, you were doing a good thing. You were trying to help.” It was more like pat on the back, like, you were trying to help. And I kind of changed that on the day to more of a “See what happens when you try to help? See what happens when you take something that is out in the wild and it’s surviving and it’s a wild animal and you bring it into a cage, you take the life out of it—literally.”
And it’s sort of the same thing that’s Daryl’s feeling—like, if you take these wild animals and if you put ‘em in a cage, they’re going to change and it’s not going to be for the better. So I kind of modified that a little bit to reflect Daryl’s feelings back at Alexandria. And I said it to him in a way where I sort of said it over my shoulder and didn’t look at him. I just kind of walked away and said it, to let him sit with that—like, who are you to think that this horse needs you? And all of his intentions were good, but this horse didn’t need you to save it. It was fine. It was a big, pretty horse and it was living, and you tried to trap it. You tried to take that bird and put it in a cage and you killed it. So I kind of left it that way and Scott let me do that and it came out really well. That was certainly the intention there.
I definitely felt the parallel that you were going for there in terms of trying to tame that horse and tame Daryl at the same time. That’s interesting to hear that it came from your vision. Speaking of ad-libs or changes, I want to ask you about that scene from last week where Carol comes out on the porch and is off to make her casserole, and as she leaves you yell after her “You look ridiculous.” Greg Nicotero told me was totally ad-libbed by you. Where did that come from?
Carol is my girl. I like to f—with her as much as possible. It just kind of came out. She actually yelled off-camera “Thank you!” which was really funny as well. Melissa and I have such good chemistry—actually, all the cast members with each other have such good chemistry—that those things happen all the time. We all throw in little things that are our own, and sometimes they make it and sometimes they don’t. Everyone cracked up after I said that and Greg had the really good sense of keeping it. It’s kind of one of those things that a little kid would say. When you’re in kindergarten and you like a girl you punch her in the arm first, you know what I mean? And it’s not that there’s any romance! I’m just saying we’re a very close group.
You have to be careful when you talk about that with Daryl and Carol, dude.
Daryl and everybody right now. Jeez!
What’s it like filming in the Alexandria setting? I remember when you all were shooting in the prison back in season 3 and complaining about how the Woodbury people had it so easy while you all were in this dark, dank jail. Now you’re in Alexandria, which is this beautiful community, but a real community. You all have people actually living in some of these houses and delivery trucks while come though while you all are filming—it’s kind of bizarre.
It’s very weird, I have to admit. It’s very, very weird. We did a scene when Tovah came to the door and I remember the doorbell went off and I was like, “What the hell? A doorbell?” It’s very not us at the moment. I mean, Daryl gutted a possum and threw its guts all over the porch. [Laughs] It’s kind of how I felt personally going in there and shooting. It’s nice to have change on a show and it’s interesting to watch these characters go through change and be put in a different environment, so as a show move I think it’s a great. As Daryl as a character, he’s really not feeling it, to be honest with you. At least not yet.
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