Gillian Anderson Joins Starz’s American Gods Series
Debi Moore
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Starz and FremantleMedia North America (FMNA) announced today that Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and SAG Award-winning actress Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”) will play Media in “American Gods,” their upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed contemporary fantasy novel of the same name.
The plot of “American Gods” revolves around a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity, and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
Anderson will play Media, the mouthpiece for the New Gods, functioning as their public face and sales representative, by taking the form of various iconic celebrities. She lives off the attention and worship that people give to screens–to their laptops, their TVs, and their iPhoness. Ever the perky spokesperson and always in control, she spins stories in whatever direction best suits her.
Other cast members include Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith, Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya, Peter Stormare as Czernobog, Chris Obi as Anubis, and Mousa Kraish as The Jinn.
“American Gods” is produced by FremantleMedia North America. Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Heroes”) and Michael Green (“The River,” “Kings,” “Heroes”) are writers and showrunners. David Slade (“Hannibal,” The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) is directing the pilot and additional episodes. FMNA’s Craig Cegielski and Stefanie Berk are executive producing the series along with Fuller, Green, Slade, and Gaiman. Senior Vice Presidents of Original Programming Marta Fernandez and Ken Segna are the Starz executives in charge of “American Gods.”
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