Norman Reedus may be ending his time as Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead, but his character’s story will continue in an upcoming spinoff. It’s going to be surreal to have the flagship series behind us. Luckily, there is much more to come.
When Reedus first auditioned for the zombie apocalypse drama, he was aiming to get the role of Merle Dixon, Daryl’s brother. While that role went to Michael Rooker, the series creators decided to develop a completely new character that did not exist in the comic books for Reedus. And the rest is well history.
Speaking with Variety, Reedus shared that he didn’t think the role would last as long as it has (nearly 12 years). It also shocked him that he was not ready to say goodbye to his character when the time came. “I feel like because he wasn’t in the comic book, and they let me run with it, I want to bookend it,” he said. “I feel like I birthed this child and someone can’t tell me when it’s over. I want to see it either have a happy ending or not. That character, I got to really make it my own and that felt great to collaborate. At first, they had me taking drugs and being racist and all this stuff, and I convinced them that, no, no, I want to have grown up with it and been ashamed of it.”
"It’s such a big show, there’s so many actors on it and there’s so much money behind it. It kind of went in a direction where it felt like all the things I had put into it and grown and learned from — I kept adding on to this pile of awesome stuff that I was adding — it kind of got overlooked because we had to feed the beast. We had to feed the show and all the people. They hit me with this opportunity of doing something involving my character more and a world around him. I was like, ‘Yeah, let me put it to bed like that.’ I care too much about it to just go, ‘It’s over! Bye everyone.’"
Norman Reedus still has more of Daryl Dixon’s story to tell
Sadly, we won’t see his character grow alongside Carol, played by Melissa McBride. With the series filming in Europe, she decided to opt out. However, Norman Reedus hints at potential plans for their reunion:
"How do you know she’s not gonna come back? The spinoff was announced before we even announced ‘The Walking Dead’ was ending. We always thought we were doing a show that would come back to the flagship show — we’d take off, then come back to the flagship show. Then they ended the flagship show, and it was us on our own. And then we shot for a year and a half straight, through the beginning of COVID. At that point, Melissa wasn’t going to do the show. And then she was going to do show. And then she wasn’t going to do the show. And then she needed a break and I went on TV and said she needs a break. I’m telling the truth. It’s always been the truth. But you don’t know she’s not going to show up on the spinoff."
I see you, Norman Reedus, and I appreciate what you say about McBride. Reedus was very supportive and called out anyone who was targeting her unnecessarily. McBride made a decision that was right for her that everyone should respect and understand, and as he said, it’s still possible she could show up at some point.
No premiere date has been announced for Reedus’ spinoff show, but he will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday, September 27th at 11:30 a.m.
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