The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang opened up about the “f—ing cool” brawl between Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Whisperer Beta (Ryan Hurst) in Sunday’s 913, ‘Chokepoint,’ penned by Aquaman scribe David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.
“David, who wrote that sequence in the script — he’s from Aquaman. He’s an amazing action writer, and he came up with such an interesting blueprint for that fight, then everybody kind of added their stuff to it,” Kang told EW.
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“Of course, Norman was like, ‘Why do I always have to fight against guys who are bigger than me? I’m going to get so beat up!’ And we’re like, ‘Cause it looks like you could beat everybody up, so it’s not a fair fight if they’re not bigger than you!’ I just think they killed it, and it was really fun. They got to destroy a set, so they enjoyed themselves.”
The vicious fight had to happen, Kang explained.
“I mean, if you have Beta and you have Daryl, and they’re in the same universe, you kind of need them to fight, right?! That was the thinking — just, that’s f—ng cool, and we want to see that happen,” she said.
“It does, of course, play into a larger story, but Beta is sort of the leader of their army, and Daryl being Daryl, you want to see those guys go head to head. I think both Norman and Ryan Hurst, they did such an amazing job. Everybody involved in making the sequence, stunts, the director Lesil Tommy, everybody just did such an amazing job. Those guys really, really worked that fight and rehearsed it, and came up with cool touches to put into it.”
The fight could be the first of many: Hurst previously teased Daryl gets a new adversary in Beta, who must now hold a grudge against the bowman after only narrowly surviving being shoved down an elevator shaft.
Hurst previously revealed the match up was a three-page fight scene, and the actors “worked on it for a week and a half. It was a lot of fun to put together.”
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.
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