Jeremy Strong To Star In Peter Morgan Series Revamp Of 1978 Nazi Conspiracy Thriller ‘The Boys From Brazil’
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has set Jeremy Strong to star in The Boys From Brazil, with the Ira Levin Nazi conspiracy novel being adapted as a TV series by Peter Morgan, who will be executive producer along with Suzanne Mackie of Orchid Pictures.
It will be the first series for Strong since Succession, and the first for Morgan since The Crown. It also comes as Strong is in the Best Supporting Actor Oscar race for his turn as Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. It will be run through Netflix and Netflix UK, I hear.
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Netflix declined comment.
Levin’s novel was turned into the 1978 hit film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, and sources tell me Strong will play the role of Lieberman. That is the famous Nazi hunter — Laurence Olivier played the role in the film — who is drawn to investigate a conspiracy spun to him by a young Nazi hunter (played by Steve Guttenberg in the original). Lieberman is highly skeptical of the young man’s claims that notorious Dr. Josef Mengele is in Paraguay, starting on a diabolical plan to reestablish the Third Reich through a cloning plan put in place after Germany lost World War II. When the young Nazi hunter is killed, Lieberman heads to Paraguay to uncover a truth that turns out to be horrific. Gregory Peck played Mengele in the film, which was nominated for five Oscars.
Strong as Cohn and Sebastian Stan as young Donald Trump are both Oscar-nominated for The Apprentice, a drama about the formative years of the wannabe real estate titan who is taken under the wing of Cohn, the polarizing lawyer who was Sen. Joe McCarthy’s right-hand man in the Communist witch hunt that established the Hollywood Blacklist. Strong just wrapped Deliver Me From Nowhere, playing manager Jon Landau opposite Jeremy Allen White’s Bruce Springsteen in the Scott Cooper-directed film about the existential crisis that led Springsteen to write and record his seminal album Nebraska.
The action of The Boys from Brazil took place in the ’70s, but the specter of Hitler and antisemitism still looms large, even with Kanye West paying for a Super Bowl ad on Sunday that pointed viewers to a website selling swastika shirts.
Strong is repped by WME and Sugar23. Morgan is repped by Independent Talent Group and UTA.
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