The Walking Dead Season 2 Casts Pruitt Taylor Vince

After hearing about casting calls, we now have our first new recurring cast member for Season 2 of AMC’s The Walking Dead, and I’m a little surprised by it, but at the same time I’m not.

TV Line reported that Pruitt Taylor Vince landed the role of Otis, a kind foreman on Hershel’s Farm, a key location in The Walking Dead’s universe, who on the surface is nice enough, but hides some racist values. He ends up meeting our group of survivors under unfortunate circumstances. Anyone who’s read the comic knows what event takes place, although that doesn’t mean the TV version won’t be altered in some way to keep it fresh.

If you’re familiar with the comic, you might share my brief shock at Vince’s casting. In the book, Otis is a lot skinnier than Vance, but it’s not like any of the other actors in the series look like their comic book counterparts. Ultimately it’s not about what the actors look like, but if they’re performance is strong and believable. If there’s one fault the series has had it is making its characters believable. Although so far that complaint has been limited to the original characters not appearing in the comic book, it could happen to someone like Otis who wasn’t featured as much as the other newcomers were.

Vince has spent lots of time in different television and film roles, most notably playing Mose Manuel on Deadwood. More recently he appeared for an extended arc on The Mentalist as Internal Affairs agent J.J. LaRoche.