Eagle-eyed fans of ‘The Walking Dead’ may have noticed a very special cameo appearance, of sorts, in this week’s most recent episode by none other than Johnny Depp.

The 12th episode of the current sixth season featured the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ megastar on screen for just a few seconds as a decapitated head, which was the work of the episode’s director and special effects guru Greg Nicotero.

In ‘Not Tomorrow Yet’, which was broadcast on Monday evening (March 7th) on Fox, Depp’s head appears as one of three severed heads from which Rick must choose that can double up as that of Hilltop Colony leader Gregory, played by Xander Berkeley.

Johnny DeppJohnny Depp made an unusual, fleeting cameo appearance in 'The Walking Dead'

Since Berkeley didn’t have time to do a head cast, Nicotero himself opted to do so, and in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, he revealed that Depp’s head was one of the others.

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“The Gregory head is actually a cast of my head,” he revealed. “One of the other heads, I don’t know if I’m going to get in trouble if I say this, was Johnny Depp. 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.”

In the episode, a darkly comic moment comes when Rick realises that the head he has chosen has a noticeably different nose, and solves it by smashing the severed head with his fist.

“I think one of the funniest moments we’ve shot in the season is when the Savior sticks his hand inside the head and puppeteers it to start talking,” Nicotero added, asked about the dark humour of 'The Walking Dead'. “I laughed so hard when we shot that scene.”

“I can’t remember who the third one is, but I’m in good company,” he said, adding flippantly that one of the other cast members, Norman Reedus, asked to keep the three casts when shooting was done. “Norman kept saying he wanted the heads when we were done shooting!”

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