Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride talk about "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon"

Name: Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride talk about "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon"
Uploaded: 2025-08-04T23:09:14+00:00
Duration: 16 min 6 s
Channel: Variety
Description: Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride talk about "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon"

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00:00Several knives. There's some new weapons. There's a mace, but there's a new version of maybe that coming.

00:09I don't know. I like all the weapons, obviously.

00:23We're here with The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon at Comic-Con.

00:27We have Daryl himself, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, who plays Carol, Scott M. Gimple, the chief content officer of The Walking Dead universe, and David Zabel, showrunner in an EP.

00:38Thank you guys so much for being here.

00:40I got to ask, Norman, the sword, is that a new prop for Comic-Con?

00:45This is Game of Thrones, right? I stole it from the last interview.

00:51Who was the last interview with?

00:53I don't remember.

00:54EW, right?

00:55TV Guide.

00:57Maybe season four, Daryl, might have a new weapon to kill some walkers with.

01:00Yeah, I think I've used the sword before. I've used everything, I mean, from a stapler to a rocket launcher, so, yeah, maybe.

01:08Good new prop. I want to see that in season four. We'll make it happen.

01:11We'll make it work.

01:12This October...

01:13I'm just kidding about the stapler, though. I didn't.

01:15We've got 15 years of The Walking Dead this October. I would love to know, just what does this landmark mean to you guys to be here at Comic-Con this year for 15 years?

01:24It's a big deal just to be here any year. 15 years is a very long time. Norman was talking about it yesterday.

01:36We talked about it a lot yesterday, how we've just been... It was television, and it's streaming, and it's all these different devices that you stream on, and surviving all of these different platforms and incredible amount of content to still be competing with some of that content, and people still seek us out and find it.

02:01And that's kind of amazing. And to fill the hall, as you say.

02:06Yeah, I mean, 14 years of filling all H every time is kind of amazing, but we would film the show in Georgia in the beginning. Now we're way over in Spain, but it's nice to come back and get the fan love, and it kind of energizes you to go forward, you know, so it's a nice feeling.

02:23It's funny that Melissa's surviving. That's what we did. We survived these 15 years, and...

02:31Because of the audience, because of the fans, they dig it so much. But a show that lasts 15 years, or, you know, a universe that lasts 15 years, it's insane. It's amazing that we got here.

02:46Any differences between stateside fans and international fans?

02:51I mean, sort of. Spanish people are very passionate. You know, it's wild for us to go to a place like France or Spain, and there's such a big, rabid following so far from home.

03:09So it's nice to feel that. The difference in the fans? I don't know. They're all...

03:16They're getting excited over there, knowing that, you know, their home, their home place is a big character in these two seasons.

03:26Yeah, it's a huge thing for the local people, and especially the cast and crew that we have from Spain to know, like, they're getting to make their own version of this great, iconic franchise, you know?

03:38So they get really... You can feel, like, there's real excitement that, like, we get to do our own Walking Dead with these great, iconic characters as a mainstay of it.

03:47But around them is the Spanish Walking Dead, or the first two seasons, the French Walking Dead, you know?

03:53And I think that creates a whole different kind of enthusiasm.

03:55Was Spain always on the list of places that you guys wanted to take the franchise?

04:02The... We got the ball rolling to France, and then David took the ball and ran with it.

04:09And, you know, the shows, in and of itself, they reinvent themselves every season, or back in the day, we had 16 episodes every 8 episodes.

04:20David reinvented the show, bringing it to Spain.

04:22Yeah, I mean, it was very exciting when I came on, and France was already on the table talking about doing it in France.

04:29But part of it was just narrative.

04:31It felt like the characters wanted to keep moving, and the story wanted to be a struggle to sort of get somewhere, to get back home.

04:38So it made sense to keep moving.

04:40And then it also was great for us creatively just to go, like, great, we do a full story over two seasons in France, and then we keep moving forward.

04:48We go through England, we end up in Spain, and we get to sort of constantly discover new stuff, new people, new cultures, new history, new geography.

04:58And the approach of really... I mean, the way that all three of these executive producers have embraced...

05:06They tell stories of the place.

05:08They aren't telling American stories there.

05:10They're telling stories of France, of Spain.

05:13And it's been incredible.

05:17So we know where you guys are at physically, but where are Daryl and Carol at mentally, you know, story-wise this season?

05:24Yeah, well, France, Daryl left...

05:30He kind of left a bit of his heart in France.

05:32And so when he reunites with Carol, and they head to Spain, he's kind of in a place where...

05:39Which is a storyline that's introduced as they come through the tunnel, is that we're always running.

05:46We're always fighting.

05:47Maybe there's a better way to live, you know?

05:50Like, the clock is always ticking, and we've seen how the world is on the other side of the ocean.

05:56And maybe we're doing it wrong.

05:58Like, maybe the idea is to stop fighting everybody.

06:02And we keep getting sucked into other people's battles as we're trying to get home.

06:07So it's kind of a running theme that lasts through season three and into season four.

06:14I think with Carol coming face-to-face with something that's held her back.

06:20Like, she feels like she's letting go of something very important to her to sort of fall and open up to the newness of things, ironically.

06:36Yesterday we also found out, so one more season after this.

06:40When was the idea, kind of in your mind, that there'd be one more season, kind of end with four seasons, the whole show?

06:45Well, it was an ongoing conversation that went over a period of some months, probably.

06:51We were always planning on this sort of two-season story in Spain, just like we did a two-season story in France.

06:59So there was a sort of wholeness to it from the beginning in terms of the design.

07:03And we get to do 15 episodes in Spain, which is super exciting for us.

07:06We did 12 in France, but now we did seven in season three, and we'll do eight more in season four.

07:11So there was always a sense of wholeness, and the conversation just led to a place where the feeling was that that might be a very nice closure

07:18for this particular part of the Daryl and Carol story, this European adventure, as it were,

07:26that we've done two sort of fully closed seasons in France, and then we do two seasons in Spain.

07:34That is a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that that might be a good place to end this part of their story.

07:43And I know yesterday at the panel you touched on, you know, this isn't the end-end of the Daryl and Carol story.

07:49Is there open-ended, you know, ending after season four?

07:53Is there any other ideas that you guys still want to explore, you know, with your two characters?

07:57I mean, yes.

08:02The answer is yes.

08:05But season three is coming up.

08:08That's what I was going to say.

08:09September 7th.

08:10And, yeah.

08:11There's a whole season to see, and then a whole season to shoot and get through and craft and form.

08:16And we haven't finished writing season four, but really we're focused on, right now we're still, you know,

08:22delivering season three, which is really exciting and ruminating on season four.

08:28But season three really reinvents the show.

08:30So it's great for the fans who are already watching Daryl Dixon and for anyone who fell away or, you know,

08:37dropped out at some point over these 15 years.

08:40It's actually a great time to come back in and check it out again.

08:43You could come in to the beginning of season three without even seeing seasons one and two,

08:47and you wouldn't feel like you couldn't follow the story.

08:50Like, it's a great time to sort of re-find old fans and to find new fans, you know,

08:55who maybe are younger and never checked out The Walking Dead at all.

08:59You know, so that's part of the greatness of this season for us.

09:04It's like it's a real reinvention and a new start.

09:07And the reinvention, you know, the first couple seasons of The Walking Dead were very Western-inflected,

09:13very John Ford, very classic American Westerns.

09:16This takes it into spaghetti Westerns.

09:20And so we shot in some of the same places where Sergio Leone shot like Man With No Name movies,

09:25the Clint Eastwood movies, some of those others.

09:27And we definitely let that inflect the storytelling that we're doing.

09:31And in case of the whole story is inflected by that.

09:34And there's a particular episode that's really a straight-up, our best version.

09:38Our best version of if Sergio Leone did an episode of The Walking Dead, this is what it would be.

09:44It's a spaghetti Western told within the genre of The Walking Dead universe.

09:50Episode five.

09:51It's like the spaghetti is intestines.

09:53I want to ask about the trailer that we saw yesterday.

10:00Norman, there's a pretty crazy shot of you with a chain whipping it and I think decapitating a walker.

10:06Oh.

10:07What was that?

10:08I guess, you know, the kind of weapons you used this season,

10:10any kind of action sequences that were particularly challenging or tough for you this season?

10:15Looking for a runner.

10:16That was with an anchor.

10:18Yeah.

10:19That was an improvised weapon.

10:21It was an improvised weapon.

10:22And there's a lot of good weapons.

10:24There's a knife called a faka.

10:29Is that right?

10:29Faka.

10:30Faka.

10:31There's a Navaja.

10:32That, which is like a giant switchblade.

10:35But it's very, we're using sort of medieval real weapons that come from the places that we're visiting.

10:43So there's that.

10:45There's sort of a sawed-off shotgun.

10:48It's called a Norinco.

10:49Norinco, which is when you see me on the bike and I'm flipping it around, there's that.

10:54Winchester.

10:54Good old-fashioned Western Winchester.

10:56Yep.

10:57There's that, which I really like because you feel sort of like Clint Eastwood with that thing.

11:02Several knives.

11:04There's some new weapons.

11:05There's a mace, but there's a new version of maybe that coming.

11:10I don't know.

11:12I like all the weapons, obviously.

11:15Just like playing with all of them.

11:17Yeah.

11:18And we have a really good weapons department that takes medieval weapons and sort of modifies them in certain ways.

11:25There's a lot of bad guys with really cool weapons as well.

11:28So, yeah.

11:29There's a lot of weapons.

11:31I'm going to have to look a lot of those up to make sure they're real.

11:33The Navaha is cool because it's like a curvy knife.

11:38Yeah.

11:38It's like a curved blade.

11:40The picture on the building of the Navaha?

11:42I'm not sure.

11:43That's a version of something like that.

11:45The Navaha that he uses more commonly has more than one wave in it.

11:49It has like, so it's very cool.

11:51It's very Sinbad-y looking.

11:54Are we talking Ray Harryhausen, not like, you know, the comedian?

11:59Yeah, I'm talking about the comedian, Scott.

12:01I'm just making sure.

12:02No, there's a bunch.

12:04A bunch of cool ones.

12:05You've got Leone, you've got Sinbad.

12:06Kind of everyone's coming together.

12:08Yeah, everyone's represented in season three.

12:10Yeah, and a bunch of good actors.

12:10But not the comedian.

12:13I want to ask, too, the motorcycle scene in the trailer.

12:16I think with the sawed-off shotgun.

12:18How many takes, you know, did that take?

12:20Where did that one shoot?

12:21It looks like a big open desert area.

12:23Oh, wow.

12:24Yeah, where was that?

12:25Sepulveda?

12:26No, that was near Zaragoza.

12:28Zaragoza.

12:28Outside Zaragoza, which is a town, sort of central, northern Spain.

12:34Yeah.

12:34Between Madrid and Barcelona, kind of.

12:36Yeah, we have a really good stunt crew.

12:38We brought the stunt crew from France with us to Spain.

12:40And a lot of those mean-looking dudes on bikes, they're really good stunt guys that have worked

12:47with us for a long time.

12:48So the shotgun is, you end up with very blistery, bloody fingers after a day of that.

12:58But it looks cool.

12:59So we just, we go for it.

13:01And then finally, I mean, 15 years in, how is it still fresh, you know, after so many seasons?

13:08It's very fresh.

13:09Like David was saying, you could start at season three.

13:13Every place we go with the new cast of characters and the new location, it feels like we're reinventing.

13:19So everything, to us, feels new again, which is sort of the draw for us to play these characters.

13:26Like, it's never dull.

13:28It's never boring.

13:29It's all fresh and new.

13:30And there's a large excitement in the room while we're filming because the scripts are new.

13:35Everything has a fresh feeling to it.

13:37And we have a great combination on the cast and crew of people who've been doing this a long time and we're really good at it.

13:43Like these three people up here with me and then other people like me and people that I brought along who are more new to the universe.

13:50So it's a great combination of sort of knowing how it's done and how it's done well, but also a sort of enthusiasm and a feeling of vitality to it.

13:59Because to me, I'm like, I haven't, I didn't spend 15 years writing these kinds of stories.

14:03So I came in like, cool, let's go.

14:05And so it makes for a really good combination of experience and enthusiasm.

14:12And I mean, none of the, I mean, of all the Walking Dead shows, this has to be the freshest.

14:17This is, you know, completely different from any of the other shows.

14:22We haven't done any shows like this.

14:24And then for this show to be in France and then to be even fresher going into Spain, like this is the freshest Walking Dead that you can possess.

14:34It's so fresh and so clean, clean.

14:36It's so fresh.

14:37It's so fresh.

14:38And so clean, clean.

14:39It just opens opportunities for all kinds of new, fresh, different things.

14:43A new language.

14:44We have to speak a different language.

14:48That's new and fresh.

14:49Meet new people.

14:50And just the places that this show goes, I mean, it takes your breath away.

14:57I mean, it, France was full of locations that, oh, people were like, oh, the production values.

15:07And it was France.