Norman Reedus

0:00Thank you so much. Hey, how are you, man? I'm good. How are you? I'm really, really good. Excellent. You've been on a bit of a whirlwind trip doing my research. I see you've been like all over the world in the past two weeks. Tokyo. It's crazy. So where are you right now? I just landed in New York. I'm just for some additional shooting to do for the finale. Oh, no way. Okay. So it's not completely done yet. That's interesting that they saved it for after all your crazy press. You're all tired when you get there. That's great. Yeah, right. But, you know, I'm tired on the show. It'll work. Yeah, I guess the character is kind of exhausted.

0:45I guess everyone's kind of exhausted on the show. Yeah, everyone's exhausted. I mean, they live in a crazy world. Anyway, we don't have much time. So there, you know, doing research for this, I realized, I love it when there's a crazy story on Wikipedia that I just, I don't know if it's true or not. And so I thought we'd start with you getting discovered at a party in LA, screaming with giant sunglasses on until someone asked if you wanted to be in a play. What is that? Yeah, that was, I was working at a motorcycle shop and I quit my job that day. Something went wrong. I went to a party of people and there was a.

1:39So that's why, because you were, you just showed some sort of like, not caring about your surroundings or did you have any acting experience before that? I didn't have any acting experience. I'm going to start trying that. I'm just going to start screaming at parties and hope for the best from now on. Okay. I like it. I think it's a one time thing. Yeah, maybe that's the right way to go about it. It's true. So knowing, knowing a little bit about the comic book series before starting watching the series, I know your character was not a part of it. And then you became a, you know, a recurring character and then became a series regular. Now you blew up my Twitter, just me asking, you know, is anyone have questions for him this morning? It's never gone crazy, which is nuts.

2:27So going out. Yeah, man, it's like congratulations on that, I suppose for. That's my mom on Twitter. Yeah, yeah. Got 300,000 accounts. Yeah, yeah. So what inspired your backstory, not having the comic book to go off that everyone else did? I never really had, I never actually had a conversation at all about the character when I first started with Frank Derivant or anybody. You know, I showed up on set and I knew some of Merle's stuff. Paper Merle and then I just, you know, what do you think they're all things about? T-dog. You know, so growing up like that, everything and I just looked off and some people fight

3:31because they've always had to. So I just sort of took it. And then I heard the writers kind of took things maybe that you said and brought that into season two. Is that true? Yeah, well, you know, there were certain, you know, certain things, you know, with TV you can do little, you get to drop these little things. Well, there must be the biggest compliment for you as an actor when you, when you're dropping those little seeds and then it turns out that the writers, I guess, you know, just another further

4:19acclimation that they dig what you're doing when they take it back and put it into the actual stories the following year. Actually, very generous of them and, you know, it's a compliment and, you know, at the same time, sometimes I come up with ideas. They're like, no, no, I mean, no. You can't do that. Oh, man, come on. And then they go. What's a give and take, I'm sure. A little bit of give and take there. Yeah, it's a total give and take. So I was talking to David Morrissey earlier this week who was telling me, you know, he likes to immerse himself in the character. He'll stay in character, he'll stay in action. I think even said Andy stays in action as well while they're working. What about you as an actor? When do you get into characters? Is it in your trailer before? Is it when the director says action? Like when are you, Darryl? Yeah, I would.

5:16You know, everything kind of, you know, I started for a season and it was a very thing I was trying to do. And, you know, I used in one to season three, but, you know, in the beginning, you know, I tried to try to not look people. So, and now he's hiding things, but he's kind of.

6:03How's that for you as an actor? I mean, I think I think I could be wrong with this is the first time you've had to this long to play with the same character. Oh, no, you're totally right. Um, it's, I mean, I've done like 50. I've never really had that opportunity. You know, you never really get a chance to really immerse yourself physically and change yourself. You, you can do it mentally and where you walk and where and so forth, but

6:53I never had an opportunity to, you know, gain Darryl needs that. No, but it's nice. I mean, it's certainly a zombie apocalypse. Where's he gaining all this weight from? I mean, I had to keep fit for this part and stuff like that. But you want to stay lean. You want to, you know, you know, you know what I'm saying. Talking talking about arm muscles and what I'm just thinking, like the first scene we're going to see of the new season is you, I would assume becoming getting into a fight. Now, I don't know where the scene's going to play itself out, but the way it's set up is that you and Merle are going to have this fight. So did you do any fight training for it? Well, you know, if that's what's going to happen, you know, all fights, you know, they

7:54take, you know, good care and not beating. You definitely get hurt. But I guess it makes you feel more like the character anyway. Like you feel more immersed in the scene, the more injured, I suppose you get. Trying to be as little as possible, you know, I, you know, we could have played that part, taking fire and people kill everyone here. You know, we could have played it that way because it, you know, that seems not really, to me about the governor. It's about seeing Merle in that situation, you know what I mean?

8:44So how do you play that? Do you play that like, I'm going to kill everybody or do you, because I wanted that interaction, you know, he went from like, I'll kill everybody to like, oh my God, what have I done? And that's because, you know, so. Now, is that something that comes out in rehearsal? Is that something you talked to the writers about? Like how did, how did you block the scene and rehearse it to play it that way? Um, you know, we just, Rooker and I work really well together. And he's such a good, you know, you can just throw something completely different, Rooker,

9:30and he'll just react differently. You don't, you don't really, you can't really fail underneath that whole, and I'm sure just put him in that place. And you know, he, he played that part, how he wanted to play it. You trust each other and Rooker's just really. He's talking about taking the hood off. I noticed in that scene that, uh, you're just talking about where you're going, playing it little. Like you back into your captors chest, you know, the governor's got you. Yeah. But you. I'm so glad you noticed that. Yeah. So yeah, but I found that so interesting that you chose, I don't know if that's you choosing

10:17to do it, if that's someone blocking you to do that, but I found that really interesting that you back into your captor when you see your brother. Make a conscious, just made a conscious decision over those GIF. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, there's one of, one of me doing that on the internet that happy people watch episodes and they pick up these little things, you know, because it just, it makes people are paying attention to these details and you know, all the characters on our show are so rich.

11:05And they do these little things and, you know, it's about these people. And so, but yeah, that, that about anything, you know, like, it's like when Carol leans over and kisses me, you know, like coming at me, you know, and you know, now there's a storyline that I was an abused child, you know what I mean? So these little things are for me and for the ride. Cool. I'd love to keep going along that thread, but we don't have too much time here.

11:55So I wanted to switch to, um, I don't know where I want to take this. Um, I guess filming the disclaimer that's going to air before the shows, uh, this season, because I know that was a big, that was a big thing for you. Yeah. I mean, that was, you know, that was a decision that Joel, uh, and Charlie made already, you know, I'm happy to do stuff like that. And, you know, I mean it and we all mean it and, you know, and the digital arrows, I'd love to get that story from you. Because I hear you have a real arrow in your hand. You're going through everything, you have to take the arrow out of scene, drop it on the floor, pick it back up, and then it's all digital. And I'd love to just hear how that works. Yeah. It's a, it's a massive because you can't shoot a real arrow on set.

12:43Oh, you're self loading the crossbow. So if there's like, you know, say there's 20 walkers in front of me, you know, you got to raise it back up where it lives. So you got to yank it out of the forehead. You got to maybe stick your knife and another one. Keep that one off. You pull the arrow out. That's crazy. Um, before I let you go, we do something called five questions. Five quick questions.

13:32One word answers. Yes. Hitchcock or Kubrick. Hi Hitchcock or Kubrick. Landon or McCartney. Your biggest influence as an actor. Roll your most proud of. Dale Dixon. Cool. And in one word, the walking dead. Exciting.