Ryan Hurst Teases Something “Very Exciting” After Meeting With The Walking Dead Boss Scott Gimple

Ryan Hurst, who has played Whisperer Beta for two seasons on The Walking Dead, teases a “very exciting thing that may or may not happen” after meeting with executive producer and chief content officer Scott Gimple. A towering killer who never removes his mask made from walker flesh, hiding his celebrity secret identity, Beta’s origin story was glimpsed in Season 10 episode “We Are the End of the World,” where Beta first encountered Alpha (Samantha Morton) while disguised by a balaclava. Subsequent episodes of The Walking Dead hinted at Beta’s life pre-apocalypse following a reveal of his true face in Fear the Walking Dead, but the Walking Dead universe might be taking another peek beneath the mask.

“It was one of those little psychic things. When I first had this premonition of doing this job, I sort of saw this character and I had this backstory,” Hurst said at Comic Con Liverpool. “When they offered me the job — because I had read the comic, I knew the storyline for Beta — and I went in there and pitched them a completely different sort of origin story, and they liked it. So we developed it together.”

“And I just had a meeting with Scott Gimple, and there’s a very exciting thing that may or may not happen that I cannot talk about,” Hurst added with a laugh.

The former five-season Walking Dead showrunner, now serving as overseer of the Walking Dead brand across television and film, previously noted the franchise would expand with multiple miniseries, specials and other shorter length series, some of which could further explore even killed off characters. Gimple has not revealed if Beta is among the characters who could be brought into bigger focus in a project outside the traditional 16-episode season format of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

“Television is changing, and that’s exciting, because we can tell stories in other formats than 16-episode seasons. I think we will continue to do that, and we have plans for that, but we also have plans for shorter length series,” Gimple previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “For mini-series, for things that are like specials. And it’s taking advantage of not only the different stories we can tell, but the different formats we can tell them in.”

Some of these proposed projects, which would span a variety of tones, could run for anywhere from three to 16 episodes.

“Not everything we put out is going to be connected to any of the existing shows,” Gimple noted. “And further, some of it might not even need to go beyond a certain length. We do want to do these smaller things that are completely their own thing, and then do something else. Some stuff could be three episodes, some stuff could be six episodes, some stuff could be 12 or 16 [episodes].”

For now, Beta will carry out his revenge against the survivors when he discovers Alpha’s decapitated head in Season 10 episode 14, “Look at the Flowers,” premiering Sunday, March 29 at 9/8c on AMC. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.