"The Walking Dead" just aired its season 5 finale and the show won't be returning until this Oct. Its companion series, "Fear the Walking Dead," will fill the void as it premieres this summer and it has recently been announced that "Orange is the New Black" actress Elizabeth Rodriguez is joining the cast.
According to a report from Entertainment Weekly, the actress has been signed on a series regular. No details regarding her role have been released but one thing is for sure - her character won't be seen in the series' pilot episode as it was already shot before she was brought on board. It is likely she will appear by the second or third episode of the season.
Melty reports that "Fear the Walkin Dead" will focus on a particular family, contrasting the "rag-tag" group of survivors in the main series. Where the survivors of "The Walking Dead" found each other over a period of time, "Fear" will focus on how the zombie apocalypse affects a family that has been together for years.
With this dynamic, it is possible that Rodriguez would be portraying an outsider that the main characters would either have to ally with or fight against as they try to make it through and survive.
Rodriguez will be familiar to fans of the Netflix original, "Orange is the New Black," where she plays the character Aleida Diaz. She also portrayed Agent Chavez in one story arc for the NBC series "Grimm." She portrayed Detective Ramsey in the Tom Hardy film "The Drop" and was in two episodes of "Shield."
"Fear the Walking Dead" stars Cliff Curtis, Alycia Debnam Carey, Kim Dickens, and Frank Dillane. The series is set in California and will start chronologically at the beginning of the zombie outbreak. Greg Nicotero has stated before, as cited by Melty, that the show will eventually catch up to the timeline of "The Walking Dead."
