BlackBook 3 Minutes: Actor/Artist Norman Reedus and Comedian Eric André



Best known for playing zombie-killing gangster Daryl Dixon in AMC’s runaway hit The Walking Dead, Norman Reedus’s route to celebrity is strange, and apparently not apocryphal: he was invited to be in a stage play after a director spotted him standing in the middle of a party, in giant comic sunglasses, screaming his head off. Given that striking performance piece, it’s not surprising to discover that Reedus is something of a jack-of-all-trades. In between his intense shooting schedule, he finds time to model (he has been the face of Prada and Allesandro Dell’Acqua), paint, and sculpt. Last fall he published his first book, a collection of his own photographs, under the title, The Sun’s Coming Up Like a Big Bald Head. 

Although Reedus has acted in many indie movies, including cult fave The Boondock Saints, it’s his Walking Dead character that has electrified his career. And while the show’s body count is high, fans have made it clear they wont take kindly to Reedus’s exit if, and when, that happens. “If Daryl Dies, We Riot” is a common refrain found on T-shirts, mugs, and other fan paraphernalia. “Last season, they were bringing fan mail to my trailer in this mini tractor,” Reedus recalled in a recent interview for Complex magazine, before adding: “But, think about it—it’s not that hard to look cool when you’re carrying a crossbow.” 

If anyone can match Reedus’s antic energy its Eric André, whose 15-minute Cartoon Network series, The Eric Andre Show is 15 minutes of the funniest, most uncomfortable TV you will find anywhere. Andre calls it an “anti-talk-show talk show,” that undermines the conventions of the traditional format by exposing them. A typical show will begin with him smashing up his own set, and proceeds from there. Although he does interview real guests—Pete Wentz, Devandra Banhart, James Van Der Beek, to name a few—it’s his fake guests such as George Clooney or Jack Nicholson that are often the funniest. Asked what she would say to Matthew Broderick if he was in the room, “Reese Witherspoon” replies, “suck my dick—I would rather f*** two midgets on a toadstool.” Just don’t expect to find the clip of Andre dressed as a chain-smoking Ronald McDonald terrorizing the diners of a McDonald’s by growling, “you’re fired” at them all. That clip was deemed too risqué by the show’s lawyers. 

Stay tuned for Part II from Norman and Eric, coming soon.

Source: Blackbook

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