The Walking Dead turned The Kids Are Alright star Michael Cudlitz says he’s reunited with an “old friend” in Tuesday’s episode of the ABC sitcom directed by Back to the Future star Lea Thompson.
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I can’t wait for this weeks episode. Had a blast with an old friend. #TWDFamily @WalkingDead_AMC I guarantee that absolutely no one dies or comes back as a walker on Tuesdays episode. But you will laugh. Directed by @LeaKThompson ……. see you on Tuesday night. pic.twitter.com/GYSQGXcgSW
— Michael Cudlitz (@Cudlitz) April 14, 2019
Cudlitz’s former Walking Dead co-star Josh McDermitt, whose Eugene once counted Cudlitz’s Abraham as friend-slash-bodyguard, is due to appear on the series in an April 30th episode, but Cudlitz shot down McDermitt as Tuesday’s secret guest star in subsequent tweets.
The Disney-owned network is now home to several Walking Dead stars: Maggie actress Lauren Cohan headlines spy action-comedy Whiskey Cavalier, which co-stars former Noah actor Tyler James Williams, and former Carl Grimes star Chandler Riggs has since appeared on drama A Million Little Things.
Set in the 1970s, The Kids Are Alright sees Cudlitz play Mike Cleary, the patriarch of a traditional Irish-Catholic family that counts eight boisterous boys among its members.
After being killed off The Walking Dead in its Season Seven opener, Cudlitz was drawn to the sitcom because it appealed to him as a parent and differed from past roles as the zombie-slaying Abraham Ford, Southland‘s Los Angeles police officer John Cooper, and Band of Brothers‘ Sgt. Denver Randleman.
“I just did not want to be doing the same stuff that I had been doing.… I was done killing things for a while. I wanted a little less angst. I wanted to be laughing on set for all the right reasons,” Cudlitz previously told THR.
“Then this came along last pilot season. The script by [creator and showrunner] Tim Doyle (Last Man Standing) was just amazing. I read and fell in love with the script. Tim said he used to watch Southland with his daughter.… I knew he knew what I was capable of. I didn’t feel like I was going to be pigeonholed. I felt like he was going to take advantage of that in his writing in the future. I found it incredibly funny with an incredible amount of heart, and did it all within half an hour.”
The Kids Are Alright airs its next episode Tuesday, April 16 at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. Cudlitz, who made his directorial debut on The Walking Dead Season Nine, returns to helm another episode in Season Ten, launching on AMC later this year.
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