Josh McDermitt wanted Eugene and Daryl Dixon to throw punches in The Walking Dead (Exclusive)

While the tone of The Walking Dead is usually somber and bloody, there are lighthearted moments as well interspersed throughout the series. One of the memorable scenes from Season 11 transpired when Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) squared off with the alpha male of the series, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus).

Fans of The Walking Dead will undoubtedly recall that Eugene has never been portrayed as a particularly brave character on the show (to put it mildly). The aforementioned visual was thus so ridiculous that Dixon laughed and scoffed at Eugene, even encouraging the latter to throw a punch.

So when McDermitt mentioned how 'everyone wants to be Daryl Dixon' during a roundtable that SK Pop was invited to, we had to ask him about the supremely hilarious scene.

Read on to find out what McDermitt thought of the scene and why he values the time spent with his good friend, Norman Reedus.

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The Walking Dead star Josh McDermitt laughed out loud when he read about the scene

In a previous interview, Laila Robins alluded to the tension between her character Pamela Milton and Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton). McDermitt segued off this comment to talk about Eugene's chemistry with Daryl Dixon. He noted:

"I think the scene where Eugene and Daryl almost came to fisticuffs is kinda what Laila was saying. There was a manipulation of s*xual energy between the two. We never shot that scene. No, that was really fun."

The room roared with laughter at the joke. Post which, The Walking Dead star continued on a more serious note. He said:

"When I read that in the script I just started laughing really hard. But the thing I loved about it the most is that as funny as it was it was very real. I mean this is the point that Eugene found himself. He was pushed to the point that he would fight Daryl. And Daryl would kick his a**. But he had to do it. He’s actually stood up for less in his life. This is where he was. And the fact that Daryl just kinda scoffs at him like – geez whatever but also feels for this man in this moment. We had a lot of fun shooting that scene."

Norman Reedus and Josh McDermitt go back a long way. McDermitt joined The Walking Dead in season 4 and has been an integral member of the cast since. Speaking about that, he continued:

"There’s so many cast members on the show and we don’t all get to work together as much. I know Norman very well but we’ve probably only done two or three scenes together. Where we’re not like in a larger group. So, that was fun to mix it up with him."

But if The Walking Dead star had his way, he would have allowed both characters to go to war in a flurry of fists, as he mentioned:

"And I don’t know how they could have figured it out but it would have been cool if we did actually come to blows. That would have been fun to shoot."

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Catch the final episode of The Walking Dead on AMC and AMC+.