Here’s What’s Next For Chandler Riggs After ‘The Walking Dead’

Spoilers for the latest episode of The Walking Dead past this point!

Chandler Riggs has officially left the building. The young actor’s best known character, Carl Grimes, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on this week’s (February 25) episode of The Walking Dead, after getting bitten right on the side by a zombie. The episode was an emotional send-off for Carl lasting an extended 82 minutes of AMC’s airtime, followed by an hour-long chat on after-show Talking Dead. Suffice to say, Carl did not go gently into that good night.

But what about Chandler Riggs himself? What’s next for him, now that the past eight years of his life (he was first cast on the show at age 10, and up until last night was one of the only surviving members of the original cast) are behind him?

Don’t worry, Riggs Riders, which is the fanbase name I just came up with… The former Grimes has a few upcoming projects… And also, we may not have actually seen the last of him on Walking Dead.

Inherit The Viper

A crime thriller focused on the prescription drug epidemic in West Virginia, Inherit The Viper is in post-production, and Riggs stars alongside Josh Hartnett, Bruce Dern and Margarita Levieva (The Deuce). There’s no release date on the independent film yet, but it’s an impressive cast and as far as I can tell, involves no zombies, which is nice.

Only

You can take a boy out of the zombie apocalypse, but you can’t… Take… The boy out of the apocalypse, I guess, as Riggs has signed up to star in this upcoming sci-fi film about a couple whose love is tested when a space virus starts killing all the women in the world. The movie will co-star Freida Pinto, and Leslie Odom, Jr., who you definitely know best from SMASH, and not from any other musical project. The movie has just been announced, so no details about filming or release as of yet.

College, maybe?

In 2016, Riggs was accepted into Alabama’s Auburn University. He clearly didn’t go (he’s been on TWD for the past two years), but now that he’s been cut free from the show, perhaps it’s time to get a little book learnin’.

Rocking Out

Back in December, Riggs revealed that he was looking to start a music career, and released his first single under the name “Eclipse.” Potentially, now that he’s not working on a TV show most of the year, he might want to spend more time concentrating on this — though my two cents, he’ll want to grow his hair out again because that’s what cool rock stars do (I’m 600 years old, you guys).

Conventions, Forever

Before signing off on last night’s Talking Dead, host Chris Hardwick made a point of emphasizing that Riggs was a part of The Walking Dead family. He may be off the show, but he’ll be making appearances at conventions, cruises and fan events for the rest of his life.

The Walking Dead… Again

Carl is dead. D-E-A-D, not coming back as a zombie, dead. Even though the gunshot happened offscreen, this is one of the rare times we’ll lift the “body or it didn’t happen” rule. But that doesn’t mean this week was the last time we’ll see him on the show.

See, here’s the thing: they’ve been playing with time a lot this season, mixing around scenes, playing with visions, and generally tweaking the timeline. When I went on set for the filming of the show’s hundredth episode, they told me that the first few episodes of the season were insane to film, because they were banking things that wouldn’t show up until much later.

I feel pretty confident in saying that The Powers That Be at Walking Dead filmed another scene or two with Carl, most likely to hold until the Season 8 finale as a Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) fueled flashback. Add in that Riggs was cagey on a conference call with press about whether this was, in fact, his final episode, and you can put the pieces together yourself.

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