Speaking exclusively to SciFiNow, Norman Reedus, who plays fan-favourite crossbow-wielding redneck Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead Season 3, talked about fans, fan mail and what it’s like being the king of the memes.

What it’s like being the fan favourite character?

Good, actually. You know, I’ve done 30 films and I’ve never gotten as much love as I have with this one television character. Especially in the ‘Cherokee Rose’ episode it became sort of this out of nowhere softer side of Daryl and you could see there was pain inside of him, he wasn’t just this badass with a crossbow and ears around his neck, there’s a lot to him. Especially after that episode I got a lot of female fans, I got crazy amounts of fan mail delivered in a golf cart with a tractor behind it. It’s kinda insane – and someone just sent me their breast implant, so I use it as my phone cradle.

Do you have a strategy for dealing with the fans?

I embrace it, I’m very grateful that people like the character. It’s always been positive. A lot of the military, a lot of policemen and lot of firemen, a lot of people in general – they’ve always come up to me and been very supportive and positive. I try and keep a blog presence, if people go to the effort of painting Daryl the least I can do is put it on a blog, you know what I mean? I’m very appreciative, it feels like we’re all in it together so it feels great.

There’s an incredible number of of Daryl memes and image macros, is that weird to you?

No, I love it! I think it’s kinda awesome. I have a son who’s just turned 13 and I picked him up from school and he had a big smile on his face. I said, “What’s the smile about?” and he said some of the bigger kids at school love Daryl Dixon, so he was getting some big kid love at school – it’s kinda great. We just had New York Comic Con, and he came with his mom and sat in the audience, so I had 10,000 people sing happy birthday to him! It’s kinda amazing!

The Walking Dead Season 3 will return to Fox in February. The Walking Season 2 is available on DVD priced £24.99 and Blu-ray priced £27.99 from Amazon.co.uk.