Frank Darabont's LA Noir rescues some more Walking Dead actors

By Sean O'Neal | May 1, 2012 | 4:23pm

Aux Features TV

Frank Darabont's forthcoming TNT drama L.A. Noir (which Darabont still insists is not an adaptation of the video game, no matter how many times we express doubt by screaming at him) continues to be a refuge for former Walking Dead actors and/or big ol' batch of potential spoilers for newcomers to that show. Whether out of lingering camaraderie or Darabont's thirst for revenge for getting fired, a character dies on The Walking Dead and soon enough they find themselves reanimated in 1940s Los Angeles, with Jeffrey DeMunn and Andrew Rothenberg the latest to join the previously announced/spoiled Jon Bernthal in the drama about the LAPD's quest to take down mobster Mickey Cohen. The news was revealed via Twitter by Rothenberg—the symbolic hole-diggin' Jim in Walking Dead's first season—who confirmed that he had been cast in the pilot alongside Bernthal and second-season casualty DeMunn, who will move on from playing Dale by staring angrily at all-new things he can't quite believe. Gangster things.

The previously announced Neil McDonough (Justified) and Milo Ventimiglia (hardly justified, given Heroes) round out the ensemble, with the pilot potentially also featuring a guest star turn from Simon Pegg, presumably because of the zombie connection that seems to be governing all of Darabont's casting choices. Anyway, this should be reassuring to the actors on Walking Dead, who will no longer die but rather just go to Darabont's gangster farm upstate, where they're free to run around and chase gangster chickens forever. [via Digital Spy]