The Walking Dead: Ryan Hurst’s Darth Vader Comparison for Beta

The Walking Dead pulled the mask back on Alpha and Beta in Sunday night’s Episode 10×02. However, in doing so, the team behind the AMC zombie series elected to keep Beta’s face and full pre-apocalyptic backstory a secret for the time being. As it turns out, this was a decision made by Beta actor Ryan Hurst with a key Star Wars character in mind, while it also fuels the mystery of Beta’s past for fans of The Walking Dead. Furthermore, the episode which was split between the present timeline and a scenario set seven years in the past was not influenced by any of the time jumps as they relate to Rick’s disappearance and Hurst opened up about all of it.

Following the episode, the first thing on fans’ minds is why Beta hides his face and whether or not he is a famous musician. “They’re are all good questions. Those are all good questions,” Hurst tells Insider. “I can’t give you the answer. All that I noticed is I’m doing my job if you’re asking those questions. I remember in season nine Angela was like, ‘We would like to show your face.’ And I was like, ‘Are you kidding?’ I was like, ‘No.’”

For Hurst, he thought of an iconic villain’s fate following the reveal of his face when it came time to take the mask off. “After you see under Darth Vader’s mask, you don’t need to see him much more after that,” Hurst said. “I was like, ‘Let’s just pose, let’s just let the audience keep wondering up until the very last minute.’ There are answers to all of these questions about why he wears it and what’s underneath there. Is he protecting himself? Is he protecting the people that are still alive out there? How does that make any sense? These are all the questions that I wanted the audience to be asking.”

While appearing on Talking Dead, Hurst admitted that Beta might have been a “big personality” prior to the apocalypse.

Sunday night’s episode surprised fans when it showed Beta and Alpha’s first encounter, introducing the sequence with a “7 Years Ago” stamp, which would make it about the time when Rick disappeared from Alexandria by helicopter considering the six year time jump and multi-month time jump which followed his exit. “We didn’t discuss exactly the timeline,” Hurst said. “It was sort of hazy up until the last minute. We were going back between six to seven to eight years. So it wasn’t really definitively based around the disappearance of Rick. That was just a happy accident.”

What do you think of Beta’s pre-apocalyptic backstory? Are you buying the theories of Beta having been a famous musician and/or athlete prior to zombies taking over? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram and Twitter!

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm ET on AMC.