The Walking Dead Casts Soap Star Jacob Young for Final Season

All My Children and The Bold and the Beautiful star Jacob Young is the newest cast member to join the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead. Young will play Deaver, who is not named after a character from the comic books by creator Robert Kirkman and artist Charlie Adlard. The Daytime Emmy-winning Young is best known for playing the jealous and manipulative Rick Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful and for his role as wealthy bad boy JR Chandler on All My Children. Character details for Young’s Walking Dead role remain under wraps.

Young joins a cast of Season 11 newcomers that so far includes the previously announced Michael James Shaw (Avengers: Infinity War, Blood & Treasure) as Mercer, the red-armored commander of the Commonwealth Army, and Margot Bingham (Boardwalk Empire, She’s Gotta Have It), who plays Stephanie of the Commonwealth. Bingham will appear in person in Season 11 after her voice-only role in Season 10, where Stephanie makes contact with Eugene (Josh McDermitt) over his long-range radio.

It’s possible Young’s “Deaver” is a Commonwealth soldier or a fake name. Casting calls for past seasons of The Walking Dead sought an actor for “Orin,” a fake name to hide Negan (ultimately played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and an actor for “Angelo,” actually comic book character Dante (ultimately played by Juan Javier Cardenas).

Young’s soap opera credits could make him a candidate for Sebastian Milton, the spoiled son of Governor Pamela Milton, who is introduced as part of the elite citizens of the classist Commonwealth. Sebastian plays a key role in the final issues of the comic book, which could explain secrecy around the role.

Season 11 will finally reveal the Commonwealth, a network of settlements defended by the white-armored soldiers first seen capturing Eugene, King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paola Lazaro) at a rail yard in Charleston, West Virginia, in Season 10 and the extended season’s bonus episodes. Members of this community include the interrogator (Jessejames Locorriere) and troopers (Cameron Roberts, Erik Bello) encountered by Princess and friends in Season 10 Episode 20, “Splinter.”

“[The armor] tells you that this group is really formidable, they are organized, they have some access to the materials that you need to create in a uniform fashion, so that’s really unlike some of the groups that we’ve seen,” showrunner Angela Kang teased about the Commonwealth Army ahead of their return in Season 11. “Because our groups have only been able to do things like that on a very limited basis, like [how] Eugene was only able to make a handful of perfect bullets. But these guys have a lot more going on.”

Source: Deadline

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. The Final Season of The Walking Dead begins Sunday, August 22, on AMC.