Fear the Walking Dead’s Alycia Debnam-Carey Cast as Lead in Hulu Series

Fear the Walking Dead star Alycia Debnam-Carey has booked a new leading role on Hulu. Debnam-Carey, who has played Alicia Clark across all seven seasons of AMC’s Walking Dead spinoff, will replace You‘s Victoria Pedretti as the lead of the psychological drama Saint X. Pedretti exited the adaptation of Alexis Schaitkin’s novel over “creative differences,” according to reports. The eight-part series is produced by Disney’s ABC Signature (Little Fires Everywhere, Grey’s Anatomy) and will film in the Dominican Republic. Deadline first reported Pedretti’s recasting with Debnam-Carey. 

Debnam-Carey will not be on set for the beginning of production on Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 but could join later in the shoot, according to the report. AMC Networks is relocating the spinoff from Texas to Georgia for the eighth season with a planned shooting start in June-July.  
Due to COVID, Debnam-Carey was in her native Australia for much of the first half of filming on Fear Season 7A. Alicia didn’t appear this season until episode 707, “The Portrait,” returning to declare war against old friend Victor Strand (Colman Domingo) in December’s mid-season finale “PADRE.” She’s now leading the fight to take Strand’s Tower in the second half of Season 7, airing Sundays on AMC. (Kim Dickens, who played Alicia’s mother Madison Clark in the first four seasons, will appear this season before returning as a series regular in Season 8.)

Saint X is “a psychological drama told via multiple timelines and perspectives that explores and upends the girl-gone-missing genre. It’s a show about how a young woman’s mysterious death during an idyllic Caribbean vacation creates a traumatic ripple effect that eventually pulls her surviving sister into a dangerous pursuit of the truth” (via Deadline). Debnam-Carey will play Emily, “a sharp and ambitious woman whose carefully constructed, seemingly perfect life begins to crumble.” 

Leila Gerstein (Hart of Dixie, The Handmaid’s Tale) is writer and executive producer with director Dee Rees (Empire, Mudbound). Saint X will stream on Hulu. 

New episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Follow @CameronBonomolo on Twitter & @NewsOfTheDead for TWD Universe coverage all season long.