Third Walking Dead Series Casts Nico Tortorella

Younger star Nico Tortorella is the latest to board AMC's third Walking Dead series, Deadline reported Monday.

Tortorella will play a lead role as Felix, described as "an honorable man of his word who isn't afraid to fight for others' safety and acceptance."

Deadline notes Tortorella's casting won't interfere with their role as Josh on TV Land comedy Younger, heading into its seventh season.

Tortorella's Felix joins Aliyah Royale (The Red Line) as Iris, Annet Mahendru (The Americans) as Huck, Alexa Mansour (Unfriended: Dark Web) as Hope, Nicolas Cantu (The Amazing World of Gumball) as Elton, and Hal Cumpston (Bilched) as Silas.

"Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever," reads an official synopsis released by AMC during San Diego Comic-Con. "Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad."

This second spinoff follows the first generation raised after the fall of civilization and was created by TWD chief content officer Scott Gimple and TWD veteran Matthew Negrete.

"There's a big secret about the Walking Dead universe. All these years we've just seen a tiny sliver of the Walking Dead world. There's a whole lot of world out there," Gimple said during TWD's Hall H panel at Comic-Con.

"The big secret is that all along, there have been other civilizations that survived the apocalypse. We saw hints of that in Season 7 of The Walking Dead and again in [Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 episode] 'The End of Everything,' and now we're about to show a lot more of the world in a bunch of different projects."

Gimple said the young survivors will "leave everything on a dangerous quest" as they venture beyond the relative comforts of home. "We'll see kids become heroes and some become villains. We're going to open up a whole new world of TWD."

AMC programming chief David Madden most recently told TheWrap this series, which may forgo including "The Walking Dead" in its title, is "really on its own separate path. It's a different feel and different tone. It won't look anything like the other two shows."

The spinoff is now filming in Virginia and will debut on AMC spring 2020.

Photo credit: Victoria Matthews