‘Empire’ season 3 spoilers: Meet younger versions of Lucious, Cookie

For at least a couple of occasions on its upcoming third season, “Empire” is heading back in time. You may have heard that we were going to meet younger versions of Lucious and Cookie Lyon on the Fox drama series, and we now know officially who will be playing them.

According to a new report from Deadline, Ajiona Alexus and Jeremy Carver are going to recur throughout at least part of the third season as these characters. (For those fellow TV nerds wondering, this is not the same Jeremy Carver who stepped down as showrunner for “Supernatural.”)

In addition to these two additions, the aforementioned site also confirms that Ezri Walker is going to appear as a “nerdy” 16-year old kid named Zeah, someone who happens to also have a significant talent as a rapper. With his good grades and high intellect, he finds himself at a crossroads and forced to choose between being more of an academic and devoting his time to having a major career at Empire Entertainment. Maybe eventually he can find a way to wear two separate hats interchangeably, but it is a little bit tougher when you are just getting into the business. Let’s just hope that things work better here for Lucious than with Freda, one of the last young talents he eyed as a potential protegee.

New episodes of “Empire” will begin on Fox in a matter of months, and these three actors join a robust list of guest talent that also at present includes Kid Cudi and Taye Diggs.

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