Casting Update for Stephen King’s Under the Dome TV Series

CBS is getting ready to start filming the 13-episode first season of Under the Dome, with the first episode airing on June 24th. We've been reporting on a number of casting announcements and have news on who has been hired for the lead role.

Mike Vogel was previously seen in Cloverfield and The Texas Chinsaw Massacre (2003)and will appear in the upcoming Psycho prequel TV series, Bates Motel (pictured below). According to Deadline, he's been cast as Dale “Barbie” Barbara in Under the Dome. The character is described as "an Army veteran who is in Chester’s Mill on a mysterious mission."

Here's a rundown on the previous casting announcements and details on the characters they will be playing:

Aisha Hinds: Carolyn Hill,"a take-no-prisoners Los Angeles entertainment attorney who is trapped in Chester’s Mill while driving through town with her partner, and their daughter, on their way to deliver their teenaged daughter to a camp for troubled youth."

Nicholas Strong: Phil, “a popular radio DJ and indie rock fanatic, a charismatic figure with a dark secret.”

Britt Robertson: Angie, a waitress and aspiring nurse who has always dreamed of escaping Chester’s Mill.

Alex Koch: Junior Rennie, a character that is in love with Angie. He’s described as “son of the local politician and car dealer, who is a smart, secretly deeply disturbed college freshman desperately in love with local girl Angie.”

Natalie Martinez: Linda, an “…ambitious deputy, fiercely loyal to Sheriff Duke Perkins, who runs a tight ship in the town of Chester’s Mill.”

Colin Ford: Joe, a “teenager living in Chester’s Mill, a very smart kid who’s understandably freaked out when he discovers that the mysterious barrier covers the whole town — and both his parents are outside of it.”

Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) will be directing the first episode and the story has been adapted by Brian K. Vaughan. For those that haven’t read the 1000+ page novel, Under the Dome was released in 2009 and involves a Maine town that has been cut off from the world by an invisible dome:

“Just down Route 119 in Chester’s Mill, Maine, all hell is about to break loose… On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day, a small town is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and rain down flaming wreckage. A gardener’s hand is severed as the dome descends. Cars explode on impact. Families are separated, and panic mounts. No one can fathom what the barrier is, where it came from, and when — or if — it will go away. Now a few intrepid citizens, led by an Iraq vet turned short-order cook, face down a ruthless politician dead set on seizing the reins of power under the dome. But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time isn’t just running short. It’s running out.”