Norman Reedus Calls Walking Dead Spinoff Art

The Walking Dead was on TV for so long, most viewers knew what to expect from it. Lots of zombies, humans betraying each other, everyone coming together, a few people dying, then a happy ending and it all starts up again. So with the show’s spinoffs, each needs to be something different and Norman Reedus thinks his new show, Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, is exactly that.

“I feel like we’re not cranking it out for numbers on a Sunday night. We’re making art,” Reedus told Entertainment Weekly in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.”There’s moving dialogue. It’s a different animal and it’s beautiful, it’s touching, and it’s sort of amazing to look at and listen to and watch and feel.”

Reedus is well aware that Daryl’s earlier adventures became a bit repetitive. “I think with doing a show as long as The Walking Dead for that many years, whether you know it or not, you fall into a rhythm of repeating things that work,” the actor continued. “I found myself saying some of the same lines over and over and did all the other sorts of storylines that we had done before, maybe with another character or whatever. Now, we’re not following anything.”

What they are following, and hoping fans will latch onto, is the character of Daryl, long a fan favorite, who somehow finds himself in France for this show. The question of exactly how a survivor of the zombie apocalypse who spent most of his time in the southeast side of the United States ends up on the other side of the Atlantic speaks to that unpredictability Reedus mentions. However, the actor stressed, while Daryl Dixon is a different beast from The Walking Dead, it will still have those Walking Dead bones.

“We have all the elements of The Walking Dead that people love,” he said. “There are tears and screams and it’s full of all the things that the original show had—especially those early years of The Walking Dead—but it’s also unique and going to speak for itself.”

Read more from Reedus over at EW. Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premieres September 10.

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