Kim Dickens (“Deadwood,” “House of Sand and Fog,” “Red,” “Lost,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Treme,” “Sons of Anarchy”), who played the lead detective in the 2014 blockbuster “Gone Girl,” has been cast as the female lead in AMC’s proposed, untitled “Walking Dead” spin-off pilot set in Los Angeles.
Producers were originally calling for a thirtysomething to play Dickens’ role; Dickens turned 49 in June.
Dickens will play a guidance counselor trying to survive the zombie apocalypse alongside her teacher boyfriend, played by New Zealander Cliff Curtis (star of recent one-season wonders “Trauma,” “Missing,” and “Gang Related”).
Frank Dillane (who played 16-year-old Tom Riddle in 2009’s antepenultimate Harry Potter movie) and Alycia Debnam Carey (who starred with Sarah Wayne Callies in this summer’s tornado movie “Into The Storm”) play the Dickens character’s kids.
The kids are described as “screwed up” and “ambitious,” respectively. The Dickens character is described as having an “edge” and a “past.”
Current “Walking Dead” showrunner Scott Gimple is apparently not involved with the proposed spin-off. Dave Erickson, who wrote six episodes of “Canterbury’s Law,” 17 episodes of “Sons of Anarchy” and two episodes of AMC’s “Low Winter Sun,” serves as the Los Angeles project’s chief creative force alongside Robert Kirkman, a longtime “Walking Dead” writer who also created the comic book on which the series is based.
Find all of Deadline’s exclusive on the matter here.
