Norman, my Norman.

This man fascinates me.  I mean, utterly, completely intrigues me.  And, believe it or not, it wasn't his good looks that caught my attention first.  It was his acting.

If you don’t know, Norman Reedus plays Daryl Dixon in the extremely popular AMC series, The Walking Dead.  Daryl is a redneck with incredibly developed survival skills, and a similarly talented, but far more malicious older brother, Merle.  Though I was hooked on the show after just two episodes, Norman didn't really catch my eye right away (he doesn't actually appear until episode 3).  In fact, I didn't even recognize him as the actor who played Murphy McManus in The Boondock Saints.  (Though, to be fair, TBS came out in the late nineties, and I hadn't seen it since it exploded all over my college campus back in my ungrad years.)  Daryl seemed, at first, to be every bit the asshole his brother was, and who likes an asshole?

But then, as the season went on, and Merle disappeared, Daryl’s character began to seem different.  It seemed like there might be a spark of humanity under the cruel façade Reedus portrayed so well.  It became clear that he was starting to care for some of the others in the group, however unwilling, and it was obvious that his distance was only a defense mechanism to protect himself.  He began putting effort into helping everyone, contributing and being useful.  As the first season slipped into the second, he began to seem more like a member of the group, rather than just a guy following the people with the supplies.

There was a defining moment for me, when my entire view of Daryl transformed.  **If you haven’t watched through season 2 yet, I’m about to reveal a spoiler.**  After the group discovers Sofia in the barn, Daryl regresses completely, maybe even overcompensating and becoming even more angry and withdrawn than he had previously.  After all the effort he put into searching for the girl, his already ragged and wounded ego couldn't handle the blow of losing her.  He put himself out there, and he got burned, just like he must have been, many times through his life.  That pain, and his harsh, abrupt reaction, left me in awe of the man behind the character.  Obviously, the writers have the main hand in producing the script, and the director sets up the scenes perfectly, but it was the phenomenal portrayal of Daryl’s reaction that has me so intrigued with Mr. Reedus.

Norman put an entire back story to Daryl’s character without ever putting it into words.  Such a feat is already incredibly impressive, but the fact that he was given a sort of free reign with the character, and he chose to take it in that direction -- and was ridiculously successful! -- blows my mind.

I've watched countless interviews, panels, and Q&A videos, and read dozens of articles and written interviews, and I only become more and more impressed.  I wish I could sit down with him and pick his brain.  I want to know his history, and the experiences that make him so humble and nice.  I want to know what made him who he is today, because it seems clear to me that so much of him is in Daryl’s character.

Like I said, fascinating!  And yes, I did use this as an excuse to post copious amounts of photos :)  Here's one more for the road!  Oh, captain, my captain!