Weird Things Norman Reedus Has Kept From the Walking Dead Set

Kim Taylor-Foster
TV The Walking Dead
TV The Walking Dead

It seems The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus is a bit of a magpie when it comes to props. He’s admitted he likes to take stuff after a day’s filming on the zombie apocalypse show. To be fair, show boss Greg Nicotero is fully aware – and even facilitates his acquisition of things both weird and… well, let’s just stop at weird.

Instead of collecting shiny things, though, the actor – who plays the tough but sensitive Daryl Dixon on the show – has nabbed a host of strange and macabre but, let’s face it, pretty cool things. One of his takeaways is the actual facial hair of his co-star.

Walking Dead Depp
Fancy keeping Johnny Depp's severed head? Norman Reedus did

So what’s he got? For starters, Reedus tells us that Greg Nicotero has given him “Johnny Depp’s head” and “two penises”. The head we knew about but the penises?

Nicotero clarifies: “You have Jamie Foxx’s penis and Mark Wahlberg’s penis.”

We presume they’re talking about prosthetic appendages, and it’s likely that the members in question are from the sets of movies Boogie Nights and Django Unchained, both of which Nicotero fulfilled special make-up effects supervisor duties for.

Johnny Depp’s head, in case you don’t know, is a little easier to explain – in episode 12 of Season 6, called “Not Tomorrow Yet”, it appears alongside two other severed heads collected when the gang goes out to find a head that looks like Hilltop leader, Gregory.

But it seems Norman is just getting started: “I’ve got Hershel’s hair – I’ve got his ponytail. I’ve got Andy [Lincoln’s] beard in my refrigerator in a bag.”

Hershel met a memorable end at the hands of the Governor in Season 4. Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes, of course, is still very much alive – but we all remember the moment he shaved off his impressive beard. Now partially regrown, it was a video of Rick with his full beard that prompted villain Negan to say, “I would not have messed with that guy.”

Anything else you’d like to share, Norman? Well, yes, now you mention it: “I have the skull with the spinal chord hanging out of it.”

He also admits to keeping the tortoise shell – or turtle shell as Reedus refers to it – from episode 2 of Season 6. Remember when Enid ate a tortoise? “But then I wrote a love note to Emily [Kinney who played Beth on the show] and gave it to her – like, thanks for that episode,” he says. “I should get that back.”

Watch Greg Nicotero, Norman Reedus and co-star Christian Serranos who plays Rosita on the show talk stealing props in the video above.

Kim Taylor-Foster
Kim Taylor-Foster is Entertainment Editor for Fandom in the UK. She was raised on an unsteady diet of video nasties and violent action flicks.