She added that featuring Funny Sonny’s “busted” teeth in the film was “really encouraged” by Reedus and the production.
Norman Reedus will always be able to look back at his time filming The Bikeriders with a very … unique smile on his face.
Ashleigh Chavis, who served as the makeup department head on Jeff Nichols’ motorcycle club drama, told Us Weekly that Reedus kept his character Funny Sonny’s brown and heavily ground down set of fake teeth after he wrapped filming.
“Norman still has those teeth,” she said, according to the outlet. “He kept them after the film, and he said that he reads his daughter’s bedtime stories wearing those teeth.” (Reedus is dad to a five-year-old daughter named Nova, whom he shares with his wife Diane Kruger.)
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Reedus was working on Bikeriders at the same time that he was shooting his upcoming Walking Dead spinoff Daryl Dixon in Paris, which meant that Chavis had to coordinate across timezones in order to make sure that he had his teeth in time for filming.
“I had to work with Paris local time and getting him to an orthodontist to get him measured,” she said. “With the time difference and his work schedule, and my work schedule, that was tricky, but we got it.”
After all, Reedus’ character is based on the real-life Funny Sonny, a member of the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club who is depicted in Danny Lyon’s 1968 book that inspired the film. “We knew that Funny Sonny’s teeth were busted. They just weren’t taken care of,” Chavis said. “That was something that both Norman and production had really encouraged.”
Reedus previously revealed that he’d had the teeth made for the film. “[Nichols] sent me the script and I said, ‘Jeff, you’ve got a lot of good looking guys in this movie, can I go in the other direction?’” He recalled on a recent Jimmy Kimmel Live episode. “And he let me do it.”
In order to get into character, Reedus explained that he’d pop in the teeth while traveling to set.
“I would fly from Paris to Ohio back and forth doing the movie, and I would put the teeth on the airplane and [to] the stewardess, I’d be like, ‘Can I get a Diet Coke?’ And then I got to Ohio and I’d go to Starbucks like, ‘Can I get a cappuccino?’ And then I’d go to Target and, ‘Do you have sweatpants?’” He said. “Just to see if people could understand me.”
Entertainment Weekly reached out to representatives for Norman Reedus, but did not immediately hear back.