Why Dave Chappelle Won’t Ever Get a Cameo in The Walking Dead

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

Norman Reedus – who plays Daryl in The Walking Dead in case you need reminding – has revealed that Dave Chappelle has been asking for a cameo on the show.

The actor and comedian is set to feature alongside Reedus in the Walking Dead star’s side project about motorcycles, Ride with Norman Reedus. He’s keen to appear as a walker but both Reedus and Walking Dead chief Greg Nicotero have been quick to shoot him down.

Reedus says, “I was like: ‘That’s never going to happen.”

THe Walking Dead Scott Ian
Anthrax frontman Scott Ian as a walker in 'The Walking Dead'

Nicotero admits that celebrities ask all the time for cameo roles in the show but suggests it’s not a road they’re likely to go down in the future. And that’s despite the fact that Anthrax frontman Scott Ian has already appeared as a zombie, as well as former football player Hines Ward.

“Truthfully, even if we were to ever do that they would need to be completely unrecognisable because you don’t want to pull the audience out of the story,” he says. “If all of a sudden somebody goes: ‘Hey guess who that is?’ Then it kind of takes us out of the show and we never want to do that. Any time a make-up or a visual effect takes you out of the show, it stops.”

And to be fair, if you didn’t know Scott Ian and Hines Ward were in it, you wouldn’t know it was them. Nicotero, who produces and directs the show, is far keener on laying Easter Eggs throughout the series than sneaking in cameos, à la shows like Game of Thrones. Recently, there was a sly homage to horror anthology series Creepshow.

But what are some of Greg’s favourites? We know what a huge fan of Jaws Nicotero is so the first one he mentions doesn’t surprise us. It comes from the Season 5 finale.

“In [the] two-seasons-ago finale when Daryl and Aaron are collecting license plates, we got a replica of the license plate from Jaws that they cut out of the shark and put it on one of the cars,” he says. “I always put little things in there for myself just kind of for fun.”

He hints at some others: “Listen, there may have been an Alien egg in the background, there might be Freddy Krueger’s claw in one…”

And remember Johnny Depp’s head? It’s no secret that one of the heads they found in an episode last season was modelled in Depp’s image. A second was also based on Nicotero’s likeness. But the third was also made in the image of someone famous…

Hear what else they had to say in the video above.

Find more interviews with ‘The Walking Dead’ cast here: 

and here:

http://fandom.wikia.com/videos/walking-dead-cast-want-die

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.