Two Walking Dead Alumni Star in New CBS Series Clarice

When FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) returns in Clarice, it’s with two Walking Dead stars among the cast appearing in the Silence of the Lambs sequel series on CBS. One year after the events of the 1991 film that starred Jodie Foster as Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the new series from creators Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Picard) and Jenny Lumet (Star Trek: Discovery) takes a “deep dive” into Starling’s untold personal story. Clarice returns its lead heroine to the field in 1993 Washington, D.C., where Starling pursues serial murderers and sexual predators with allies Shaan Tripathi (Kal Penn), Tomas Esquivel (Lucca de Oliveira), and Agent Clark (Nick Sandow).

Joining them are The Walking Dead alumni Michael Cudlitz as Paul Krendler, leader of the ViCAP Fly Team, and Jayne Atkinson as U.S. Senator-turned-Attorney General Ruth Martin.

Cudlitz played military man Abraham Ford in seasons 4 – 7 of The Walking Dead, later returning to the zombie drama as a director after his fan-favorite character’s death at the end of Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) baseball bat; Atkinson appeared in season 8 as Georgie, the mysterious benefactor to the Hilltop colony led by Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan).

Marnee Carpenter (Criminal Minds) plays Catherine Martin, Ruth’s daughter abducted by serial killer Buffalo Bill and rescued by Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs.

Clarice does not pursue the escaped “Hannibal the Cannibal” — who won’t be named for legal reasons — and is not a police procedural, according to Kurtzman.

“I’ll tell you what we didn’t want [the TV series] to be. We didn’t want it to be Clarice Starling: The Procedural,” Kurtzman told The Hollywood Reporter. “We just weren’t going to make that show…. And MGM, who was gracious enough to trust us with the rights to Clarice, had no interest in making that show.”

Clarice is instead better described as a thriller rooted in “a sense of emotional psychology.”

“The title of the pilot is ‘The Silence Is Over,’ and that’s actually what we want the outline for the show to be,” Kurtzman said. “It’s ‘Clarice Starling is finally speaking,’ and she’s exploring lots of new things about herself after the trauma of Buffalo Bill.”

CLARICE, from acclaimed executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, and starring Rebecca Breeds (“Pretty Little Liars”) in the title role, is a deep dive into the untold personal story of FBI Agent Clarice Starling as she returns to the field in 1993, one year after the events of “The Silence of the Lambs.” Brilliant and vulnerable, Clarice’s bravery gives her an inner light that draws monsters and madmen to her. However, her complex psychological makeup that comes from a challenging childhood empowers her to begin to find her voice while working in a man’s world, as well as escape the family secrets that have haunted her throughout her life.

Clarice premieres Thursday, February 11, at 10:00 PM ET/PT on the CBS Television Network.