AMC have added newcomer Tom Payne to the cast of The Walking Dead in a recurring role with a contractual option for the seventh season, with THR reporting that Payne will be stepping into the role of Paul 'Jesus' Monroe.
Tom Payne / Credit: FAMOUS
The show's main group led by Rick (Andrew Lincoln) come across Jesus in the comic book series not too long after the events we saw at the end of the show's fifth season, and if the series continues to play close to the arcs that played out in the comic books it makes sense that viewers will be introduced to the character before too long.
Making his home at HIlltop Colony, Jesus is described as a "rare logical man and skilled adviser with a strong sense of morals and values who is well-adapted to the new world." Essential to the big plot points we should see going forward, Jesus could lead the group to their biggest enemy to-date.
Showrunner Scott M. Gimple explained to THR: "There's a particular story in that arc that I'm very excited for. But because we know where we're going, we have some opportunities to play around with it and put some things in that will lead up to [Negan and Alexandria] in different ways yet fulfill the story Robert [Kirkman] told to the Nth degree by utilising some slightly different approaches. Lineups and timelines and the whole nine yards."
The storyline being referenced is one involving villain Negan, whom Lincoln talked about to THR earlier in the year.
Lincoln said: "There are astonishingly brilliant and thrilling characters that I am convinced we would be idiots not to meet in our journey; I would be very surprised if we don't see Negan on the horizon in the not-too-distance future. What struck me, that I've always been excited about, is we're coming into the sixth season of this show... and it's the medieval part of The Walking Dead comic, where you realise that there are these isolated communities that don't really know other ones exist. But they're all building and forming themselves with their own image.
"And then there's a clash of those communities. That, to me, is really interesting and when it gets really exciting with all the action. It turns into this insane, near-apocalyptic landscape that we've never seen before. That is almost a reimagining and a restart for society and humanity. And that is such a rich thing to tell."
Things will all start to be revealed when The Walking Dead returns in the US on Sunday, October 11 on AMC.
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