Norman Reedus in Design Bureau, Sep/Oct 2011

Design Bureau, September/October 2011
(Transcribed by @StalkingReedus)

I like people that push the envelope, and I think that is sort of the point of art: to do things that make people talk. All my favorite artists have done that. You know, when you have Will Smith rapping about making your bed and brushing your teeth, that doesn’t really do much.

I always wanted the quiet life of a painter, and just live in a house somewhere with a bunch of old trees and cats running around. That’s kind of my goal.

I’ve done artwork my whole life. I’ve done shows of video installation. I’ve done shows as a photographer and painter. I’ve cut rock, wood, and done sculptures in lots of different media. I made an eight-pound, polyurethane-foam, life-size statue of myself, put it in a Plexiglas box, and filled it with rats.

To be in from to the camera is a different sort of criticism. You can do a show as a painter, and you can put paintings up on the wall and blend in with the crowd. If someone takes a picture of you, they’ll say “Oh, it’s a beautiful picture,” but the first thing that comes to mind is, “His haircut is fucked up,” or “Why is he wearing that outfit?,” or “I remember him back four years ago, he had hair like…” It’s the nature of the game. I’m sure when Salvador Dali came out, people probably threw rocks at his house.

Some of my favorite photos are taken on sets and on location of people that I’m working with. You get to go into a world that is beautifully lit, with strange circumstances and people who are hired for what they look like. You get all these opportunities that you wouldn’t always get if you were just walking home from the corner store.

I am inspired by laughter, mistakes, laughing at mistakes, animals, Sonic Youth, boobs, and almost everybody.

Norman Reedus is an actor currently starring in the AMC drama The Walking Dead. He is well known for a variety of film roles, including The Boondock Saints and Blade II. Off screen, Reedus is a voracious photographer and has captured a wide variety of subjects, from his colleagues on set, to Russian prisoners, to his family and his cats.