With The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and The Power of the Dog which may earn him a Best Actor nomination, Benedict Cumberbatch is everywhere right now. But that isn’t stopping him from indulging in some prestige TV, especially since it involves what I think is his most frequent genre, the political thriller.
Cumberbatch will star as assassinated former FSB and KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, in HBO limited series Londongrad. After speaking out against the corruption he saw within Putin’s government, Litvinenko fled to the UK to avoid retribution. In 2006, he suddenly fell deathly ill, and just weeks later died from a lethal dose of polonium-210, which Litvinenko and many others believe was ordered by Putin. Litvinenko continued to speak out, giving many interviews with the media from his deathbed.
The series is based on the book The Terminal Spy by Alan Cowell, and will be adapted by The Man in the High Castle showrunner David Scarpa. Bryan Fogel, of the acclaimed doping documentary Icarus, will direct and exec-produce along with Cumberbatch and Scarpa. [Variety]
