Veteran actress Kim Dickens has taken the female lead in the The Walking Dead Companion Series: Cobalt. She is known for her turns on the HBO drama Treme and FX's hit biker drama Sons of Anarchy, which just came to a close with its seventh season. She recently attracted attention as the police detective in this past fall's thriller Gone Girl.

Kim Dickens will play a guidance counselor who is in a relationship with a divorced teacher. A previous report calls the character Nancy Tompkins, but it is not known if that name has changed. She will have a dark past that comes back to haunt her. She also has two children from a previous marriage. Frank Dillane will play her son, a troubled teen with a drug problem named Nick Tompkins. And Alycia Debnam Carey is playing the daughter, Ashley, a mostly level-headed teenager whose ambition is in direct proportion to her older brother's failures.

Cliff Curtis will play Kim Dickens' love interest, a person trying to do right by everyone he loves. The show will serve as a prequel of sorts to The Walking Dead, explaining what happened at the start of the zombie outbreak. It will take place in Los Angeles, as opposed to The Walking Dead, which take place near Atlanta, Georgia.

Kim Dickens will next be seen taking on a key role in House of Cards Season 3. Her feature film work includes The Blind Side and the Footloose remake. The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman is writing the The Walking Dead Companion Series: Cobalt pilot script alongside Dave Erickson, with Erickson serving as the showrunner. The premiere does not have a set date at this time, but we can expect to see the spinoff in late 2015.