Austin Amelio Wants Norman Reedus’ Daryl on Fear the Walking Dead

Fear the Walking Dead newcomer Austin Amelio wants to see former Walking Dead co-star Norman Reedus bring his Daryl Dixon to the spinoff.

“Maybe Daryl, yeah,” Amelio told BUILD Series when asked which Walking Dead character he’d bring over to Fear. “It’ll be fun, mix it up a little bit.”

The adversaries first crossed paths in The Walking Dead Season 6, igniting a rivalry that would continue through its eighth season.

That season ended the Survivors-Savior war with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) defeating Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) with the help of Savior-turned-mole Dwight, who was ultimately spared when he was exiled from the Virginia settlements under threat of death by Daryl.

When an audience member called out Negan for the next crossover, Amelio laughed off the suggestion.

“I want Negan out. I’m over Negan,” Amelio said of Dwight’s old tormentor. “I love Jeffrey Dean, but Negan, he’s not a nice guy.”

The physically and mentally scarred Dwight has since made his way to Texas, where he’ll cross paths with familiar face Morgan (Lennie James) while searching for missing wife Sherry (Christine Evangelista).

He’s far from Negan — who will years later become reformed after a near eight-year solitary prison sentence in The Walking Dead Season 9 — but the hatred is fresh.

“I think there is something to say about just putting him in jail and letting him rot. Because you know, there’s a window right, like death is coming, so that’s all you’re pretty much looking forward to,” Amelio said of Negan’s punishment during a September convention appearance. “I would just like to let him rot in his thoughts.”

Asked how he would punish the ousted Savior leader, Amelio answered, “I’d just feed him dog sandwiches and torture him.”

Though Dwight is freed from Negan’s humiliations, the redemption-seeking ex-Savior faces even tougher times ahead when audiences see him next in Sunday’s Fear the Walking Dead.

“I can say it definitely doesn’t get any easier for him. He’s probably in the darkest spot he’s ever been in … it is heavy,” Amelio teased of Dwight’s Fear journey during WonderCon in April.

“Dwight has definitely been in tough spots on The Walking Dead, it just, it gets tougher for him. That’s all I can say now. It just gets drawn out, the darkness is just drawn out. But I’m excited to show where he is. It’s fun to play that, and he has such a strong purpose, that it does make sense to have him be in this sort of spot.”

Reedus, who recently reunited with buddy Amelio on unscripted AMC series Ride With Norman Reedus, is unlikely to follow Amelio to the spinoff: the star says he’ll stay with the flagship series until the very end.

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 air Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.