'Sons of Anarchy' Star Ryan Hurst Hypes up 'Walking Dead' Role Amid Hospitalization Reveal
Sons of Anarchy star Ryan Hurst first appeared on AMC’s The Walking Dead in the Season 9 episode [...]
Sons of Anarchy star Ryan Hurst first appeared on AMC's The Walking Dead in the Season 9 episode "Guardians," which aired in March of this year. Since then, he's been in four additional episodes playing the role of Beta, who is second-in-command among the group known as The Whisperers. Based on his Instagram account, he seems very pumped to be on the hit zombie apocalypse series.
On Tuesday, he made a series of Instagram posts promoting the show. First, he posted a photo that shows his hand giving the middle finger to the words "SILENCE THE WHISPERERS" that is written on the side of a house in what appears to be Alexandria. He captioned it with, "...just saying. #thewhisperers #twd."
Next, he shared an illustration that shows what appears to be The Whisperers walking through a field. On it, the words "They talk low, they walk slow, they kill … everyone" are written. Hurst captioned it by simply writing, "...yep."
The last Instagram was an on-set photo of him holding Alpha from behind with the caption, "I am the king (and END) of the world!!!"
The only downside of playing Beta seems to be the outfit Hurst has to wear. The show is filmed in Georgia during the summer months and he has to wear either a ski mask or a zombie mask, depending on the scene, along with a black leather trench coat. The costume can actually be dangerous, as he recently told Entertainment Weekly.
"Oh my God. I landed in the hospital once this year from heat exhaustion," Hurst said. "I'm in a leather trench coat and two layers under that in Georgia in the summer. It's no joke, man."
Ahead of the Season 10 premiere of The Walking Dead last Sunday, EW talked to Hurst about his role on the show in addition to the aformentioned health scare.
"Yeah, it's been a blast. One of the most fun parts that I've had on this show is the secretive nature of where this guy came from," he said. "It's something that I very early on brought to [showrunner Angela Kang], that I had this idea of his backstory and also, how they met, and we collaborated a bunch on making this back story a reality. So, I'm just super happy with the way that it all worked out because Angela and I've been talking about this since the beginning of Season 9, when I first signed on."
Hurst, who played the fan favorite role of Opie on SoA for several seasons, continued, saying, "I had some different ideas that were sort of contradictory to some other stuff that was established in the comic books, so I think we're on the right path," he said. "There's still a lot of secrets behind who Beta was that we'll investigate more and more. But you know, I like to dangle a carrot."
New episodes of The Walking Dead can be seen on AMC Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET.