Norman Reedus was just as excited as fans were about "The Walking Dead's" season-6 midseason debut Sunday night. No spoilers of course, but the rest of the episodes are "the best we've ever done," he told the AJC during a Saturday afternoon interview.
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Fan bites Norman Reedus at convention
If you missed it, his character gets right down to business soon after the episode begins. My colleague Rodney Ho has all the details for you in this recap.
Saturday's interview was meant to promote "Triple Nine," a cop thriller shot in Atlanta that stars Reedus as Russell, who like his famous role as Daryl on TWD is intense and complex. "Triple Nine" is out Feb. 26.
Here's a trailer:
"I was shooting 'Walking Dead' at the same time" that "Triple Nine" was filming, he said. "We could see the 'Walking Dead' set from the "Triple Nine" set. It was interesting."
"Triple Nine" is about a band of rogue Atlanta cops in cahoots with Russian mobsters. Kate Winslet, demonstrating a version of the accent she tried on for her Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated role in "Steve Jobs," is the ruthless kingpin.
Its stars include Aaron Paul, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anthony Mackie and it was directed by John Hillcoat - a major selling point for Reedus.
"I'm a big fan of all of his movies," he said. (They include the locally filmed "Lawless," the 2012 Prohibition-era drama starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke and Jessica Chastain).
"I read the script and then I found out who all was in it and then I was like, hell yeah," Reedus continued.
Juggling roles in both projects made for some interesting costume changes.
"I’d go to one set, slick my hair back and cover myself in tattoos, then go to the other set and put my hair in my face and cover myself in blood," he said. "It was fun going back and forth."
While both Daryl and Russell are interesting characters, it's no surprising that he connects more with Daryl.
"There’s a lot of me in Daryl; I’ve been working Darryl so long," Reedus said. "I like how Russell is protective. He’s part of this group, this band of brothers."
There are no undead characters in "Triple Nine" but expect a fair amount of explosions, shoot-outs and overall violence. Still, the more formidable threat is still found on the AMC hit. With just a second left in our interview we asked which would be tougher to take on in real life: zombies or Russian mobsters?
"Zombies!" Reedus said. If you shoot a Russian mobster, they tend to stay down, of course. "And you can’t really reason with a zombie."
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