The Walking Dead – Norman Reedus Interview

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Yes this current issue of BELLO mag (available on iTunes)is not hiding it’s obsession with TV’s most nail biting show: The Walking Dead, and we were so scared excited to talk to The Artist: Norman Reedus about being a former Prada model and how does he feel being Daryl Dixon. Norman was photographed in NYC by Karl Simone, produced by BELLO mag’s executive editor Leslie Alejandro, styled by Micaela Erlanger, and groomed by Kristan Serafino.

Playing former redneck rebel Daryl Dixon on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Norman Reedus seems like a guy you wouldn’t want to cross, especially if you’re a flesh-eating zombie (or a traitorous human). But that’s the illusion of TV. In real life, Reedus is a soft-spoken, artistic type who loves what he does and appreciates the time he’s spending on one television’s hottest dramas. We can attest to that — we briefly chatted with him at The Walking Dead’s 100th Issue party at Comic-Con earlier this year. And there’s a bunch of factoids viewers might not know about the actor. For instance, did you know he’s a former Prada model? Having recently shot the Florida native, we tried to learn a little more…

Interview by Hiko Mitsuzuka

Art seems to run in your veins. How did you go from painting, sculpting and having your work on display around the world… to acting? 
Well, I was always in to making things. I was doing that before I was acting. I had followed a girl to Los Angeles I had met in Asia. When I got to LA, she left me there. I had made some friends in LA that were going to art school. We started doing shows on our own. Back then you would need a band and an open bar to get people to show up at all. Someone from Berlin contacted me about going there for some more shows and other parts of Europe and sort of became a benefactor to me. In New York, it was basically the same. Some friends and I started a collective of artists that we were already working with in a space we started called Collective Hardware. I didn’t stay with that group very long for various reasons, but we made a lot of fun stuff together. I just recently had a show in Times Square to raise money for Oxfam . 20 large scale prints of roadkill. We sold every one of them . I made a life size sculpture of myself out of polyurethane and put it in an 8 foot plexi glass box and filled it full of rats. Peta showed up thinking some goth kids were stomping on the rats, but they were only trying to stop them from escaping down a gutter

What or who inspires you?
I don’t know. Just about everything I guess.

What can you spill about season 3 of The Walking Dead? We know Michonne pops up, and there’s a prison… 
It’s insane. Completely bat-shit crazy. From the first 20 seconds. Everyday we say to ourselves, “I can’t believe they are letting us do this!”

Besides survival tips for a zombie apocalypse, what have you learned about yourself by playing Daryl? 
That I’m a lot less tough than I try and make myself look. And I should be in therapy.

What is it like shooting on location, outside the Hollywood/L.A. bubble? Do you guys blend in with the locals when you’re not shooting? 
LA? What bubble is that? You couldn’t make this show in LA. We love it here. I never want to leave.

You recently visited Canadian fans at a Toronto convention. How do international audiences differ from the Americans? 
They don’t. We are all exactly the same, and we are all friends.

What’s one dream storyline you’d like to see for your character?
I’d like a dog.

Category : BELLO Exclusive, Entertainment, Interviews, NEWS FEED