With AMC’s The Walking Dead right around the corner, fans everywhere are getting revved up for the season 6 premiere. To keep us staying sane, Undefinity has released a parody of the show in a mini-series called Surviving with Daryl.
At the beginning of this series, Daryl gave us some cooking tips. Using his Iron Chef skills, we were impressed by the way he knew his way around the kitchen. The second time we encountered the walker killer, instead of wielding a crossbow, he tactfully uses pliers to well… Help one of his dental patients in Teeth.
I had the opportunity to speak with Ben Layton, the actor that personifies the infamous redneck from AMC’s The Walking Dead in this hilarious series, to ask him a couple of questions.
Kimmy: “What did you do to prepare yourself to act out as Daryl Dixon in this mini series? I feel like the way you project his personality through your mannerisms to even the tone of your voice is practically spot on.”
Ben: “Thanks! I’ve gotten a shocking and unexpected amount of positive feedback about my version of Daryl. Generally, I’m pretty decent at impersonation, (you should hear my Aaron Paul) but in this case, it helps that I have a lot of physical similarities to Daryl. Aside from needing to work out my arms a bit more, I’m kind of built like Norman Reedus and I naturally walk, stand, and move a lot like him. Daryl is a version of Norman with exaggerated masculinity and intensity. He’s guarded. He’s anxious; self-aware. I can relate to his character. Watching The Walking Dead, I’m sure I would act very similar under similar circumstance. I watched a lot of Daryl compilation videos when working on the costume and I guess the persona kind of stuck in my head and I just mimic it. Oh, here’s a fun fact: I’m actually half Dixon.”
Kimmy: Can you elaborate just a little more on what you mean by “half Dixon”?
Ben: “It’s my mom’s maiden name. I’m literally half Dixon.”
Undefinity recently released a prequel to their latest Surviving with Daryl giving those who loathe the love story of Twilight, a more satisfying ending.
Kimmy: What can our viewers look forward to or rather, what can we expect to see from Undefinity in the future?
Ben: “Undefinity comes from the words Undefined and Infinity. Always undefined. We wanted to create an outlet for our weird humor and video art projects with the ability to stay random. As Steve says, “We gots sky-high fat stackz of ideas for days.” Most of them revolving around geek culture… Parodies of movies, shows, video games… Mashups and original sketches. Eventually, we want to do more of a connected and cohesive serial web series — along the lines of The Guild, or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog. Undefinity is still a baby and we’re still honing our craft, but we’ll be watching viewers feedback to see what sticks.”
Once you’ve seen the prequel above, check out Undefinity’s latest Surviving With Daryl video called Trackin’. We cannot guarantee, however, that you will be an expert tracker after this. If you would like to keep up to date with Undefinity’s projects or would like to find out more about them, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel here and follow their Facebook page here. If you enjoyed Layton’s performance as much as we did, be sure to follow him on his Facebook page here.
