Johnny Depp Makes A Strange Cameo On ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 6, Episode 12 ‘Not Tomorrow Yet’
The Walking Dead is known for throwing in Easter eggs. Usually, they are about TWD in some form, whether it be a spoiler for later, a tribute to the comic books, or, in some cases, just a little treat for the die-hards who catch all the details. In Season 6, Episode 12, titled “Not Tomorrow Yet,” Walking Dead fans got a special treat that wasn’t related to the AMC hit at all. We got a bit of a Johnny Depp cameo in the form of one of the walker heads used in the most recent episode.
It turns out that Johnny Depp’s head was used in the line up of “Gregory’s heads” when Rick was trying to decide which walker head best resembled the leader of the Hilltop colony. The plan was to break into the armory and offer up “Gregory’s head,” which would really be the closest match from a group of three walkers that Rick and the survivors rounded up. They weren’t actually planning to kill Gregory and bring his head to Negan. Many fans might have recognized Depp in the scene as they used his likeness while playing Whitey Bulger in Black Mass.
Did You Catch Johnny Depp’s Cameo On The Walking Dead? @WalkingDead_AMC https://t.co/v86gREt11A pic.twitter.com/YTCWqqbOcL
— Wendy Rollins (@wendyrollins) March 7, 2016
Greg Nicotero explained the scene and how the Johnny Depp Easter egg came to be in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight. Nicotero admitted that one of the three heads was actually his own. When they were getting ready for this scene, the TWD director said there wasn’t time to send Xander Berkeley (who plays Gregory) to have a cast made of his own head in time for filming. Instead, they were looking for a similar head that could be dressed up to look like a picture of Xander instead. It turns out that Greg Nicotero’s own head matched the best. In the scene where Rick is trying to figure out which “Gregory head” looks the most convincing, it’s actually Nicotero’s head that gets used.
One of the other two heads in the walker round up was based on Johnny Deep, and the third is an unknown. Nicotero admits that it was supposed to be somebody but didn’t divulge exactly who in the ET interview.
“One of the other heads, I don’t know if I’m going to get in trouble if I say this, was Johnny Depp,” Nicotero admitted. ” I think we had sculpted an emaciated version of a dummy head for something and we used Johnny Depp’s head as a basis just for a clay sculpt.”
Johnny Depp Made A Cameo In Sunday’s ‘The Walking Dead,’ Sort Of https://t.co/AYFuagiXpv pic.twitter.com/xZl6nEUEeS
— Comics Alliance (@comicsalliance) March 7, 2016
It would be interesting to know what Johnny Depp thought of being the inspiration behind one of the walker heads on The Walking Dead on Sunday night. He might want to keep the head that was inspired by him, but he’d most likely have to fight Norman Reedus for it. Nicotero also divulged during the interview that Reedus has dibs on the walker heads and asked the TWD director if he could have them when they were done filming with them.
Apparently, many of the current and former cast members collect Walking Dead props after they are used on the show. During a Walker Stalker Dallas panel, IronE Singleton said that one of his favorite treasures from his time on TWD was his shield that Norman Reedus had the cast sign. Singleton said that Reedus presented it to him on his last day of filming and that the signed shield is one of his most treasured pieces of memorabilia. Is it possible that Norman might want to present the heads to someone? Or is Reedus keeping the Johnny Depp head from TWD for himself? Either way, it would be a pretty cool keepsake to keep from the set of The Walking Dead.
[Image via AMC]
