Former Sons of Anarchy star Ryan Hurst, who has boarded The Walking Dead Season Nine as Whisperer enforcer Beta, is quietly hyping his arrival to the series.
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Hurst was tapped for the role in August. Joining him this season are fellow series newcomers Samantha Morton as Whisperers leader Alpha, to whom Beta is fiercely loyal, and Cassady McClincy as Lydia, Alpha’s daughter.
“I think with Samantha and Ryan coming into the show, they’ve brought so much energy and excitement in,” showrunner Angela Kang told ComicBook.com. “The two of them are, first of all, very excited to work on the show. But also, our actors are excited to work with them.”
Beta is the towering seven-foot-something-tall number two of the Whisperers who wields a pair of over-sized knives and wears a fleshy mask made from the corpse of a skinned walker. Unlike the other Whisperers, who also wear the skinned flesh of the dead as camouflage, Beta is viciously protective of his true face and refuses to let anyone see his real identity.
“The Whisperers are badass, we’re excited. That’s a formidable foe,” Negan star Jeffrey Dean Morgan told ET during San Diego Comic-Con in July. “They’re definitely, I think, more screwed up than Negan. Negan’s a bit of a mess, but these guys take it to a whole ‘nother level, the Whisperers, so I think it’s kind of exciting.”
Hurst and Morgan are good friends off-screen and are expected to play out the Beta-Negan rivalry that existed in creator Robert Kirkman’s comic book series, where the two were larger-than-life figures clashing as result of their wildly differing personalities and worldviews.
Soon-to-exit Rick Grimes star Andrew Lincoln previewed the arrival of the new enemy group during New York Comic Con, where he praised Morton and her “scary” portrayal of Alpha.
“She’s scared the bejeezus out of all the crew, actually,” Lincoln said. “Someone was doing an impersonation of a scene that she did, and even that scared me… I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s really scary.’”
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.
