AceShowbiz -

"The Walking Dead" spin-off has found its leading lady. Kim Dickens who plays suspicious detective Rhonda Boney in David Fincher's "Gone Girl" has been cast to play guidance counselor Nancy Tompkins, "a thirtysomething single mom to two kids" who "looks like the girl next door, but there's an edge to her."

Frank Dillane and Alycia Debnam-Carey are expected to play Nancy's children, Nick and Ashley. The former is a screwed up teenager who is too old to stay home but too scared to flee, while the latter is mostly level-headed teen, whose ambition is in direct proportion to her older brother's failures.

The untitled series developed under the code name "Cobalt" will take place during the same zombie apocalypse depicted in the original show, but set in a different location. Nancy works together with Cliff Curtis' Sean Cabrera, "a good man trying to do right by everyone in his life" including his ex-wife Andrea. He is a father to a "whip-smart and rebellious" teenage son.