TWD: Dead City Cast and Creator Tease New Characters
AMC's official synopsis for The Walking Dead: Dead City states the spin-off follows Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) into post-apocalyptic Manhattan, "a crumbling city filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror." That means more fresh faces are coming to the Walking Dead Universe: along with Maggie's tween son Hershel Rhee being recast with Logan Kim, new additions to the Dead City cast include Gaius Charles (Grey's Anatomy) and Željko Ivanek (Damages).
Cast members Cohan and Charles joined series creator and showrunner Eli Jorné at WonderCon Anaheim to tease what's in store for the six-episode first season of the AMC series, including new characters and locations.
"There is a character called The Croat that you're going to hear about very early in the show, and as Maggie explains early on, it's the person who took her son," Jorne teased of Ivanek's big bad. "I don't know that I want to say much more about him, but [he's] a really exciting addition to the universe, I think."
The Emmy-winning Damages and Madam Secretary actor isn't the only new Walking Dead star whose face is familiar to TV fans: joining Ivanek in a lead role is Charles, a former series regular of Friday Night Lights and Grey's Anatomy.
Charles plays Marshall Perlie Armstrong, described as a devoted family man who is ruthless and unyielding in the pursuit of what he believes is justice. His journey on Dead City unearths a loss he's haunted by — and it may have something to do with the once leader of the Saviors.
Armstrong is a marshall for New Babylon, characterized by Charles as "one of these states that has come together to try to put the world back together. My main task, my main goal and objective, is to bring justice to our land, to our community, to protect it. And one of the biggest challenges is getting this guy named Negan."
Armstrong is out to avenge injustices, but in Walking Dead fashion, "complications come about." Complicating matters: Maggie needs Negan to save her son. According to Cohan, Maggie and Negan are "forced together on this mission" to save the kidnapped Hershel from The Croat, and it's his group of "terrible people" that Maggie tracks from Virginia's Hilltop Colony to New York.
Character details remain under wraps, but the new cast surrounding Maggie and Negan include Mahina Napoleon (NCIS: Hawai'i) as a young girl named Ginny, Jonathan Higginbotham (The Blacklist) as Tommaso, Trey Santiago-Hudson (New Amsterdam) as Jano, and Michael Anthony (The Game) as Luther.
"There's a lot of new characters that you're going to meet, and I think they're all unique and exciting in new ways," Jorne said. "They all bring something new to the universe and to this world. And they bring something new out of Maggie and Negan, too, because Maggie and Negan are always at the center of this."
The Walking Dead: Dead City premieres Sunday, June 18th at 10 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+ immediately following Fear the Walking Dead's mid-season finale. Subsequent episodes will air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.