The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus discusses the dynamic that Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan brings to the cast.
The idea that Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s lethal, loquacious zombie apocalypse tyrant Negan will shake the The Walking Dead to its foundation is hardly headline news at this point. Indeed, television’s most hyped cliffhanger in recent years readies a resolution rife with blood and battery in just a few days, revealing which of the captured 11 members of Rick Grimes’s group will cease struggles in the undead world. However, Norman Reedus, who plays the endangered Daryl Dixon, makes an intriguing comparison of Negan’s character to another iconic comic-book-inspired villain.
In an interview with EW, Reedus has some potentially revelatory things to say about the shift in the show’s dynamic both before and after Negan does his infamous deed. Of course, Reedus speaks from direct experience with his character Daryl Dixon widely seen as a prime candidate to get a skull-smashing demise courtesy of Negan’s barbed-wire baseball bat Lucille – and just in time for the MLB World Series, no less. Reedus implies that Morgan’s role of Negan will give the venerable zombie drama an injection of chaos and demented levity almost akin to one particular DC Comics Clown Prince of Crime, stating:
"You know, it’s a real blessing we have him on the show. He’s brought so much new energy to this show, and that character is like the Joker. It has to be great, and he’s delivering, and everyone likes him, and he’s fun. He’s a cool guy and everything, but in the moment, everyone wants to f—ing kill him, and then we wrap, and we’re all having fun again. So he’s a great addition to the show.” Emphasizing that, “He’s a prick [laughs] but you know, I have to say, Jeffrey’s killing it — no pun intended. He’s great. He’s super charismatic, and he’s enjoying being this jerk way too much, as a matter of fact.”
If further justification for Reedus’s Negan/Joker comparison is required, one only need watch the recent “Right Hand Man” teaser clip in which Negan, just after turning one of Rick’s beloved friends into a skull piñata, flippantly asks him, “Was the joke that bad?” Presumably, the “joke” in question was a line echoed from the original comic book sequence in which Negan makes a homonym-centric quip that his bat Lucille – drenched in blood – might be “a vampire bat.” Certainly, it’s a similar brand of demented, irony-laced humor to the the Joker's riffing repertoire. Moreover, Reedus explains how Morgan’s egalitarian approach to the cast dynamic as an actor has equally elevated the show, stating:
“You know, he came onto this show, and he’s doing these horrific things, but he’s only as scary as the other actors around him make him look, you know? So, he was really impressed with our cast that even off camera, they were giving him full tears, and they were giving him every sort of thing that would really be happening even when they weren’t on camera. That’s kind of rare on a set, you know? Sometimes you act to a tennis ball.”
Anyone who has seen the Season 6 cliffhanger sequence and the teaser clips for the Season 7 premiere will know that the tension between Negan and Rick is beyond palpable and ventures into an uncomfortable level of antagonism that has to be seen to be believed. Barring the controversy over the perceived exploitative nature of dividing that iconic comic book moment into a cliffhanger, we are likely in store for some the most shocking and saddening moments in television history.
The Walking Dead makes its return for Season 7 on AMC on October 23 with an episode providing a brutal moment for the ages.