Norman Reedus reveals latest prank on Andrew Lincoln for Ride

The epic prank war between Norman Reedus and Andrew Lincoln has been well-chronicled. It has included booby-trapped air conditioning, wrapping a car in toilet paper, and even a glitter bomb at an Entertainment Weekly photo shoot (see above). But there’s one other prank from the Walking Dead set that Reedus unleashed on his bromance partner before Lincoln left the series, and it relates to Reedus’ other show on AMC, Ride With Norman Reedus, and Lincoln’s famous father-in-law.

With the third season of Ride premiering Feb. 10 at midnight ET (or does that make it Feb. 11?), Reedus shared the story of his latest humiliation of Lincoln, as well as other tales from the road with his other Walking Dead family members. And what’s this about him trying to send Jeffrey Dean Morgan a lamb from Scotland?!? Read on… (Also make sure to check out our interview with Reedus about the return of The Walking Dead.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s talk some Ride. You got a lot of your Walking Dead buddies on this season: Andrew Lincoln, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Melissa McBride, Steven Yeun, Austin Amelio. I imagine that must be really nice for you to travel and film with people you already know you have great chemistry with.
NORMAN REEDUS: It’s fantastic. You know, Jeffrey’s always been a motorcycle buddy of mine. He’s always fun. It’s great to get Andy out there. You know, it’s funny because his father-in-law is Ian Anderson, from Jethro Tull. I emailed Ian and I was like, “Hey, man. I’d love to have you on Ride this year.” We were talking about it and he was game. Andy comes to set the next day and he goes, “Oh, so I heard you were talking to Ian about being on Ride.” I’m like, “Yeah, I can’t wait.” He goes, “Well, do you want me on the episode?” I’m like, “No, man. I just want Ian.”

He was kind of a little bothered, but I played it out for about a week where I was like, “No, dude. We’re good. No, I just want Ian.” He’s kind of, “But don’t you want me?” I’m, “No, no. I just want Ian.” I played it off for a long time, and then I’m like, “Of course I want you!”

That was a lot of fun, that episode. We got Andy on a motorcycle finally, and I think he rode the motorcycle in second gear the entire time. [Laughs] The look on Ian’s face while that was happening was kind of priceless.

What about getting Melissa on a motorcycle?
The very last day of filming season 8 of The Walking Dead, Melissa and I were sitting up on this sort of mountain in the grass and were looking out over the valley, and they’re setting up behind us. I looked at her and I was like, “You know what? You should get your motorcycle license and we should do an episode of Ride together.”

We started talking about it. I was like, “Where do you want to go?” She goes, “I’d love to go to Scotland because I have relatives that are buried up on a hill and I’ve never been there, and I would love to visit the graveyard, and I’d like to learn about that part of my family.” I was like, “Get your motorcycle license and let’s do it,” and we did it. We did exactly that. She got her license and we did it. It was nice to be with a friend of mine and say, “What would you want to do? If you had a dream ride, what would you do?” She said it and we made it happen, so that was great.

And Austin is always fun. He’s so fun to hang out with. That was a really great one. Austin and I went to New Mexico, which was awesome as well. Jeff and I went to Stonehenge, which is kind of crazy because it’s right off a freeway. I imagine it’s like somewhere in this valley and hard to get to, and it’s literally off a freeway! We met the people and did some sort of ritual where we moved stones with a hundred other people with ropes. It was very crazy. I’m still convinced that was aliens.

There are also a lot of animals on this season. What’s that all about?
Yeah, I have a thing for animals. I just really like them. I mean, maybe it was the fact that I had Dog on The Walking Dead and I just got all Dr. Dolittle on everyone. I don’t know, but every time I see a puppy or something, I’m like,” I have to say something to it.” I’m just a geek.

Well, I know Melissa McBride’s a big animal lover too, so that must have been fun doing that with her.
We met a lot of farm animals, she and I, and kind of fell in love with all of them. There was one little lamb that I wanted, and I was trying to ship to Jeff’s barn in upstate New York. I went through all these measures to get this one little baby animal there, and then found out in the end they had these quarantine issues and it would never happen, but yeah, there are a lot of animals on this season. We had pig races, which I won. Which Jeff thinks I didn’t win, but I won.

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