FTWD

Fear the Walking Dead series will be aired by AMC as a side-story to the massively successful The Walking Dead in Summer 2015. Robert Kirkman, creator of the franchise gave brief description of the principal characters that set to appear in the new series. The show’s central family consists of Madison (Kim Dickens) as the mother, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) as her daughter, the daughter’s boyfriend Matt and Travis (Cliff Curtis) as Madison’s boyfriend.

Fear-the-Walking-Dead-New-Images-and-Official-Synopsis

Basically, the story is set in Los Angeles and we will follow the story told from the perspective of a male divorced teacher, a female guidance counselor, and her two children in the zombie apocalypse. The official synopsis here:

Living in the same universe as The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead is a gritty drama that explores the onset of the undead apocalypse through the lens of a fractured family. Set in a city where people come to escape, shield secrets, and bury their pasts, a mysterious outbreak threatens to disrupt what little stability high school guidance counselor Madison Clark and English teacher Travis Manawa have managed to assemble. The everyday pressure of blending two families while dealing with resentful, escapist, and strung out children takes a back seat when society begins to break down. A forced evolution, a necessary survival of the fittest takes hold, and our dysfunctional family must either reinvent themselves or embrace their darker histories.”

Kirkman stated that there is already an intense sibling rivalry between Alicia and her brother, Nick (Frank Dillane) which will give the show an interesting dynamic:

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Fear-the-Walking-Dead-Alycia-Debnam-Carey-portrait
Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia

Alicia is your atypical teenage girl. She excels at school. She’s on her way to college. She’s very self-sufficient. She’s very self-reliant. She’s kind of the model student and the model child. In the face of that, we’ve got Nick—who is played by Frank Dillane—who is pretty much a parent’s worst nightmare. He has flunked out of college, had a lot of trouble, got mixed up in some bad elements, and is definitely the problem child. And it’s exacerbated for him to be next to this perfect sister who seemingly doesn’t have anything going on in her life that is negative. But that’s not really the case, that’s just his perception.

Frank Dillane as Nick
Frank Dillane as Nick

So you have these two siblings that are very much at odds with each other. They love each other because they are brother and sister, but to a certain extent it’s almost like they are each other’s worst enemies because one is screwing things up while she’s trying to achieve things and get on to the college, and the other one is seeing her as this reminder of everything that he can’t be. So it’s an interesting dynamic.

In regards to Dickens’ Madison:

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Fear-the-Walking-Dead-Kim-Dickens-portrait
Kim Dickens as Madison

Madison is a character whose husband died. And she’s been raising her kids on her own, so she’s a character that has experienced a very abrupt change to her life that she has had to adapt to. So there’s an inherent strength in this single mother that makes her in some ways uniquely adapted to live in the zombie apocalypse. And I think Kim has shown that if you want to have a strong female character, a no-nonsense strong character —but with a lot of warmth, because its hard sometimes to find an actress that can have those two things and can be this leader and also have this warmth and this kindness to her—that’s something that Kim is very capable of.”

Fear-the-Walking-Dead-Cast-Images-New-Details-Kim-Dickens

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Cliff Curtis as Travis

Of course, we have complex characters walking around with skeletons in their closet in the franchise and here, Kirkman described Travis as:

Travis is a character that represents a sense of stability in Madison’s life, and so he’s really 100 percent on board. With the craziness of her life, he’s her rock. He’s her foundation. He’s come into this and become a part of her life and definitely is someone she’s leaned on. He’s definitely got a darkness to his past. There are some interesting revelations to come with him, I’ll just say that. He is finding himself torn between Liza, his ex-wife, and Madison.

Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris
Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris
Alycia Debnam Carey as Alicia, Frank Dillane as Nick, Kim Dickens as Madison, Cliff Curtis as Travis, Elizabeth Rodriguez as Liza, Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris, Ruben Blades as Daniel Salazar, Patricia Reyes Spíndola as Griselda Salazar and Mercedes Mason as Ofelia
Alycia Debnam Carey as Alicia, Frank Dillane as Nick, Kim Dickens as Madison, Cliff Curtis as Travis, Elizabeth Rodriguez as Liza, Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris, Ruben Blades as Daniel Salazar, Patricia Reyes Spíndola as Griselda Salazar and Mercedes Mason as Ofelia

So here we have it and let’s see how a stressful situation like the zombie apocalypse will test these people to their limits when the series debut on 23 August 2015.

via EW & Bloody Disgusting

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