Tales of the Walking Dead boss reveals if other classic characters will return in the spin-off

Alpha will be back in the anthology series.

By Tasha Hegarty and Tanavi Patel

26 Jul 2022

Tales of the Walking Dead bosses have already announced the return of Samantha Morton's Alpha for the latest spin-off to The Walking Dead, but as of yet, no other original characters have been revealed to return.

At San Diego's Comic-Con this week, series writer Channing Powell confirmed at a press conference that fans should not expect any other familiar faces to pop up during the first season.

In fact, "everyone except from Alpha is new", so audiences can watch the new spin-off without having watched the original shows.

tales of the walking dead, samantha morton

AMC

"Everybody else is new and will be a new introduction to the world and to the audience," she said, "so you can have not watched The Walking Dead ever, or Fear the Walking Dead, and start this series knowing everything you need to know, really.

"And it was really fun, we got to create these characters in the writers' room and [the franchise's chief content officer Scott M Gimple] already had some ideas going into it, so everyone except from Alpha is new."

In The Walking Dead, Alpha led the Whisperers, a group of survivors who blend in by disguising themselves as zombies in order to go unnoticed, though Morton appears to be playing a version of the character before she became Alpha in the anthology spin-off series.

AMC

Morton will be joined by newcomers to the franchise including Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Terry Crews, Olivia Munn, The Boys' Jessie T Usher, Parker Posey, Inventing Anna's Anthony Edwards, Better Call Saul's Poppy Liu, Marvel and Top Gun: Maverick star Danny Ramirez, Embeth Davidtz, and Cowboy Bebop's Daniella Pineda.

Previously describing the series, Gimple said: "This series, more than any other in the Walking Dead Universe, runs on new voices, perspectives, and ideas – bringing to life stories unlike any we’ve told before."

The Walking Dead season 11 airs on AMC in the US and STAR on Disney+ in the UK, with spinoff Tales of the Walking Dead premiering August 14.