Norman Reedus thanks you for all the niceness
Photos by Katherine Rountree
Norman Reedus is a familiar face in Savannah. The actor, known for his roles in the cult classics “Boondock Saints” and “The Walking Dead,” frequently visits the city to drop by the Savannah Film Festival. Earlier today, he had a master class with students from the performing arts department before stopping by for a chat with District.
Norman Reedus talks about his next project: a book made by the fans of “The Walking Dead.”
“I think this is my fourth time here,” said Reedus. “I like coming here. It’s not that far from where I’m living in Georgia. I’ve been to the Savannah Film Festival twice, one time I cam here just for fun and the other time I shot ‘The Conspirator’ here.”
Reedus is the only actor in “The Walking Dead” cast who has gone to the film festival. When asked if he would bring them along next time, he replied, “Sure! I’m sure they would. A lot of our cast members are doing something this weekend. Yeah, I’m sure they would. They would have fun.”
Last year, the actor released a book entitled “The Sun’s Coming Up…Like a Big Bald Head,” which was a compilation of the photographs that he had taken. Although the book was successful, Reedus wasn’t ready to do another photography book anytime soon. “I don’t want to rush into it. I wanna let that organically happen,” he explained. “That’s better. I don’t think you can rush things like that. It’s a lot of work and I’m not ready to do it. You know, with the show, I’m too busy.” He also added that a lot of his photographs either didn’t make it to the final copy or had to be edited.
On Oct. 31 Reedus will release another book, but this time it won’t have his work included. It will have the fans’ work published for the rest of the world to see.
“I have closets full of fan art and dolls and blankets and slippers and I mean, like, so much stuff,” Reedus explained. “They were like, ‘We should do another book,’ and I said, ‘You know what, I’m not ready to do another book yet. Let’s do a book for the fan art as a proper ‘thank you’ to the fans who have supported me in the show. Let’s do a proper book for them, a published book, where they get credit for it.’”
According to Reedus, “Thanks for All the Niceness” was originally going to be fan art for all of “The Walking Dead” characters.
“Regal and AMC asked me to take them out and so it ended up being a book about me. And in the beginning, I was like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to do this. This seems so egotistical,’” he said. “But then it’s
Reedus holds up a cookie made by one of his fans.
not about me; it’s about them.”
The actor found it interesting to see how the fans interpreted his character, Daryl Dixon. “Like, some made him weak and crying and some made him super strong. It was all their interpretations and it was really about them,” he said. “It became interesting because it was just about one topic and all their different interpretations of that topic, so it was awesome. It came out great and I’m super excited about it.”
However, there were “thousands” of images that didn’t make it to the book. “They were all awesome,” Reedus said. “I might do another fan art book. I have a ton of them and it’s all great.”
While Reedus served as inspiration for the artwork published in “Thanks for All the Niceness,” he in turn listed many inspirations for his own work, which spans from acting to photography to filmmaking. “There’s [photographer] Joel-Peter Witkin, I like him,” he said. “There are actors like Williem Dafoe, Gary Oldman and filmmakers like David Lynch or [Martin] Scorsese. I love Francis Bacon too; he’s one of my favorites. There’s a ton of them.”
The book, which is out next Friday, “is going to go to different stores. A ton of bookstores have already started ordering it.”
“It’s nice to have your artwork published in a proper, fancy book, you know what I mean?” he added. “And all the money goes to a charity (The Barchmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation, Inc.)”
Fans can pre-order “Thanks for All the Niceness” online.
