‘The Walking Dead’: Norman Reedus Says a Daryl Love Scene Would Be “Super Awkward”

If Daryl Dixon finds love, star Norman Reedus wants his romantic scene to be “super awkward.”

“He’s like a flamingo or a penguin, I think if he’s gonna find it he’s gonna stick with it,” the Walking Dead star told The IMDb Show.

“There’s a lot of nookie going on in our show, and I’m not in any of it. I did kind of convince everybody that I was kind of a virgin and kind of a loner early on in the seasons, and I think they kind of ran with it for a while. I feel like Daryl doesn’t really have game.”

The Walking Dead flirted with a romance between Daryl and singing farm girl Beth Greene (Emily Kinney) that never materialized, leaving Reedus’ crossbow-wielding sex symbol a rare holdout on the romantic front across nine seasons with the show.

Despite some fans’ calls for ‘Caryl’ — a proposed romantic coupling between Daryl and longtime confidant Carol (Melissa McBride) — Carol married King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), again leaving Daryl’s immediate romantic future in doubt.

Should Daryl find a partner, Reedus says, “If we were gonna do a love scene, I would want it to be just super awkward.”

Reedus previously opened up about Daryl’s romantic potential ahead of Season Nine, admitting “when it happens, it’s gonna be a big deal.”

“But I’m glad that we have played him the way we’ve played him. I think if we would have had some hot steamy barn sex somewhere, it would be over and done, it wouldn’t be a thing,” Reedus told TV Line in July.

“I don’t think he’s that type of a guy. I think he’s the type of guy that when he does it, he’ll be in love. Like he will fall in love. He wears his heart on his sleeve. Everything he means he says, when he cares about someone, he cares about them. And I think playing it in that direction is better than having an episode or a scene in one thing. It means more to him. He’s sensitive.”

The star has in the past acknowledged original showrunner Frank Darabont considered revealing Daryl to be gay, but such talks mostly fell off after Darabont was fired in 2011.

“He said, ‘What do you think if we made Daryl gay?’” Reedus once told Mirror Online. “And I was like, ‘Let’s do it, let’s do it!’ He was like, ‘I knew I picked the right guy for this job!’”

Though Daryl was never taken in that direction, Reedus said he’s “not against it.”

“And if it happened, I would be down for it, and I’d try to kick ass at it, but I don’t know if that’s where we’re going with it,” Reedus said. “It hasn’t come up other than fans, and [former Jesus actor] Tom [Payne] joking about it.”

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.

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