Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln lands first British TV role in 14 years

The actor will be making his long-awaited return to British TV

The actor is best known for his role as Rick Grimes in the epic zombie apocalypse series, which ran over 11 seasons from 2010 to 2022.

In The Walking Dead, Lincoln's character has a US accent, so some of you may have forgotten, or may not even know, that the 50-year-old is actually English.

And now he's making his long-awaited return to British TV for the first time in 14 years.

This week, ITV announced Lincoln will be starring in six-part thriller series Cold Water.

The series is set in a fictional Scottish village of the same name and will see Lincoln play the role of John, a middle-aged man who has become resentful of his life as a stay-at-home dad.

After a failed confrontation in the playground, John uproots his family from London and relocates to the rural Scottish village of Coldwater. Here, he befriends his next-door neighbour Tommy, played by Ewen Bremner, and his wife Rebecca, played by Eve Myles, the village's vicar.

Indira Varma will star as John's wife Fiona, who is suspicious of their neighbour, and it isn't long before John also started to think Tommy might be hiding some horrifying secrets.

The series synopsis reads: "This is the story of a normal man, in a normal marriage, who finds himself in a far from normal situation. A man who discovers a newfound sense of his own power, right at the moment he falls under the influence of someone incredibly dangerous."

Cold Water is written by playwright David Ireland, who praised the "formidable" Lincoln.

He said: “Cold Water started with a question I was asking myself. Where do I want to live – the countryside or the city? Such an innocent beginning, but from it came this dark, funny, twisted thriller.

"I’m amazed we’ve managed to attract such a peerless cast, led by the formidable Andrew Lincoln. I hope viewers will be find it intoxicating.”

Filming on Cold Water will get underway later this year, with a release date for the series yet to be confirmed.

The last time Lincoln was involved in a British TV show was in 2010, when he starred in the first series of Sky series Strike Back.

Along with his role in The Walking Dead, he's also appeared in its spinoff shows Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, and Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.