Q&A With The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus

In “Ride with Norman Reedus” you’ll be traveling across America by motorcycle. Have your journeys influenced your art?
We’ve only filmed the pilot so far; it’s a test-run. It came out great, but it’s kind of an experiment in a weird way. In the process, we’re picking who I’m going to ride with and where I’m going to ride. A lot of the sections we’re looking at revolve around art and artistic communities.

How are you going to pick who comes with you?
There are some people that I’ve already spoken to who are friends of mine, people I’ve worked with in the past, that are motorcycle icons in a way like Peter Fonda as [well as] people that are into motorcycles that you wouldn’t really know about. Keanu Reeves builds his own motorcycles and has his own company with very unique bikes; I’ve been talking to Keanu. Some are rock ‘n roll guys who are badass and ride motorcycles, and others are local people that know things and areas that I don’t know. We’re still in the process of putting it together. It’s going to be a big mishmash of fun, cool, interesting people with good stories.

Which do you prefer — art or acting?
I’d love to say something super pretentious, like they’re the same thing, but they’re not—they’re not anything at all like each other. It’s different because if you do an art show, whether you’re a painter or photographer, you can put your things on the wall and step back, and people can judge your stuff because it’s on a wall. When you’re acting, it’s your face, your voice, your body, how you move and how you talk, and you kind of open doors to yourself for people to view and you hope it’s more about what you’re doing and less about “Oh my God, he’s got big ears!” You kind of get criticized for [acting] more than what you’re hanging on a wall. You have to have jumbo elephant balls to be an actor, you really do; you have to have thick skin. When you do photography, when you’re taking pictures, it’s not about you. It gives you a freedom to see things as a voyeur and it lets you see things with fresh eyes. No one can look at a photograph and go, “He needs a haircut.” Even when you’re acting in something and it’s a zombie apocalypse and no one’s really taking day trips to Supercuts and it kind of makes sense that you don’t have a haircut, you can still get criticized for certain things. When you do photography, they either like the work or they don’t like the work; they relate to it or they don’t. It’s kind of nice to be behind the camera, and have it not be about me.

Does “The Walking Dead” influence your photographs? If so, how?
In a sense. I know there are some Walking Dead-esque photos in my show and in my book, but they were shot for something else, for Sony. As the show’s gotten larger, there are people who are trying to ruin the show for everyone by revealing spoilers, so security has amped up quite a bit. Cameras on set are frowned upon nowadays. Every set on that show could be in The Louvre. Everything on that show is very inspiring from the props to the actors.

What does the word “art” mean to you?
I’ve always strayed from that word, or [from calling] myself an artist. I hate when people call themselves artists. It’s such a weird thing to say. I don’t like to categorize myself as this or that. There’s art all over the place, and those who get it, get it.