Daryl Dixon

Daryl Dixon

Daryl Dixon, the younger brother of Merle Dixon, is one of the Atlanta camp survivors. He is a tough country boy able to live off the land and could properly survive alone, yet he stays with the group. He is short-fused and capable of sudden violence, but can often be level-headed and rational as well. He is an expert hunter, deadly accurate with his crossbow against both game animals and walkers. Although he is far from politically correct, it is clear Daryl is not as racist as Merle. While comments Daryl has made thus far in the series may have been insensitive, none have been blatantly racist. Beginning in Season 2, Daryl rides a chopped Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, which belonged to the now missing Merle. 

Norman Reedus

• Daryl is played by American actor Norman Reedus, best known for his popular roles as Murphy McManus in The Boondock Saints film series and Scud in “Blade II” as well as a long list of independent films such as Floating, Six Ways to Sunday, and Red Canyon. He has also appeared on numerous television shows in guest roles, including Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Charmed, and the Showtime anthology Masters of Horror.

• Reedus is also known as an artist, sculptor, photographer, and writer/director. He runs the production company Big Bald Head.

• Reedus’s tattoo over his left breast reads “Norman” and is a tribute to his deceased father, also named Norman.

• Severely injured in a February 2005 car wreck in Berlin, Reedus’s left eye socket was reconstructed out of titanium.

• Reedus describes Daryl as a guy who “needs a hug” but who would probably stab anyone that tried.

• The character of Daryl does not appear in The Walking Dead graphic novels (yet); in interviews creator Robert Kirkman has said he is considering Daryl as an addition.

• The Cherokee rose, the legend about which Daryl told Carol, is the Georgia State flower; its official botanical name is Rosa laevigata.

• The term “redneck” was first used not in the American South, but in Scotland during the 1700s. The term referred to members of a group called the National Covenant; many fled Scotland for Ireland in protest over the British edict that the Church of England be made the state church of Scotland as well as England. They often wore red pieces of cloth around their necks to signify their political dissent. How the term came to be used in America is in dispute. Some say it refers to the Scottish Covenanters, who left Scotland for the American South in great numbers, and later their descendants. Other legends say it was first adopted by West Virginia coal miners in the 1930s that were pressuring mine owners to allow for unionization of the mines and wore red bandanas around their necks as a sign of solidarity. They became known as “rednecks” by the general public and were considered to be the good guys in this dispute. Yet another explanation claims the term was first used in the late 1800s and referred to sharecroppers and farm hands that worked the fields and often became sunburned, thus giving them red necks.

Tags: Daryl Dixon, Norman Reedus