N orman Reedus screams through the back roads of Georgia atop a motorcycle. It’s summer, but he’s dressed all in black, looking like a man willing and eager to take on the zombie apocalypse. The actor is riding to the set of The Walking Dead – the hit TV show in which he stars as crossbowwielding Daryl Dixon – from Senoia, Georgia, his home-from-home during filming. The speed and freedom of the ride produce a familiar blur, the constant motion of Reedus’ life. Right now, the 46-year-old star is as close to settled as he’s ever been. His myriad other projects, including a nascent art career, have taken a backseat to the regular paycheck and filming schedule that come with being the best-loved character in a global hit show. But the pace of life is still hectic, with every gap in TWD filming filled. Reedus stars alongside Kate Winslet and Woody Harrelson in crime movie Triple 9, to be released early next year, after TWD returns for a sixth season at the beginning of October. Fame has come late to Reedus, which is a good thing. It has made him a rarity in the acting world – successful and famous, yet still very much the Hollywood outsider with his feet on the ground. “I’ve never been spoilt,” he says in a hotel on the edge of New Orleans’ French Quarter, looking more skate rat than screen star in the ubiquitous trucker hat and black clothes. “It wasn’t in my game plan to ever think like that, and it still isn’t. I still put potato chips and bread in the refrigerator because I’m used to my apartment having bugs. “This is the first job where I’m making money and I know I’m going back. I’ve always lived hand-to-mouth and job-to-job. It’s nice to have 68
a nine-to-five instead of trying to find a job to pay the rent this month and doing an art show to cover the next. I’m still that guy… but I made it.” This is a guy who’ll stop every few steps for selfies in the Loews Hotel or on the streets of New Orleans. A guy who’ll hop on his bike for a spontaneous solo road trip, or spend an evening shooting a compound bow [the modern, levered type] in his backyard. A guy who is as keen to interact with an increasingly star-struck barista as he is with his rock-star buddy Slash, the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist. “Norman’s genuinely curious,” says TWD co-star Melissa McBride, who plays Carol. “He’s always seeking input, and he loves stimuli. He’s so observant of what’s going on around him, of people, of the way things work and what people are into.” This curiosity is an instinct that has fed and shaped Reedus throughout his life. It could also explain how he’s resisted the changes that so often come with fame: he was an established man before he was an established star. Reedus is the product of a lifetime of international adventures. During his childhood, he bounced from city to city with his mother as she chased work after her marriage split. When she moved to Japan and married a geochemist, Reedus left high school to join her. (She later taught kindergarten in Harlem, high school in the Bronx, and ran an orphanage in Kurdistan. As badass as Reedus is, his mum might be even more so. He compares her favourably to Mothra, the giant, winged force of nature in the Japanese Godzilla movies.) In Tokyo, he fell in with a French guy, then a band moved into the apartment the two were sharing. Soon, they all took off for London and moved into a squat near Clapham Common, doing shifts at a postcard shop in Piccadilly and making just enough to keep themselves in beer and potatoes. From there, Reedus moved to Sitges, a city 35km south-west of Barcelona. Today, it’s the West Hollywood of Spain, says the actor, but back then Sitges wasn’t up to much. Neither was his apartment, where saltwater flowed from the shower head. “The place was as big as this,” he says, referring to the two-person dinner table in front of him. “But it was paradise. It was a cool little escape for a while.” Local women would buy his paintings of stray cats. So are there dozens of Norman Reedus
“I put bread in the refrigerator because I’m used to having bugs. I’m still that guy”