UPDATED 21st July 2018
- As well the aforementioned excellence below, it was confirmed this weekend at SDCC that Frances McDormand, the Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actress, will lend her voice to the series as “the voice of God” – YES. We’ve also got this new production video below, cannot wait!
Good Omens, the forthcoming television series for Amazon Prime Video, will see The League of Gentlemen stars Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton join its cast as filming of Neil Gaiman’s 6-part adaptation continues in South Africa.
The pair will be taking on the roles of mysterious book-buyers Harmony and Glozier and follow in the footsteps of their fellow The League of Gentlemen star Reece Shearsmith who was revealed last year as playing William Shakespeare. They will be joining leads Michael Sheen and David Tennant who are currently shooting in locations in and around Cape Town, South Africa. Also joining the pair will be Jamestown actress Niamh Walsh playing the part of Rose.
On joining the cast Mark Gatiss comments:
“I’m delighted to be working with David and Michael again and of course with Steve – bringing a little Film Noir menace to such an exciting project. Being bad never felt so good!”
Steve Pemberton adds:
“To be asked to fly to Cape Town with Mark and meet up with old friends David and Michael working on a script from the genius mind of Neil Gaiman…? Well, you had me at Cape Town. Glozier and Harmony are a small piece of the jigsaw but hopefully one which will fit nicely into place”
Commenting on the casting, showrunner Gaiman says:
“Part of the joy of Good Omens is getting to see what our angel and demon have been doing during human history. And part of the joy as a writer is writing parts with specific actors in mind. Steve Pemberton was my only choice for Glozier and Harmony has to be Mark Gatiss, in a film noir interlude set in 1941…”
Filming will conclude in early March.
UPDATED 2nd October:
As well as Miranda Richardson also being confirmed recently, today Gaiman announced that Jon Hamm is also set to spread his wings and join the cast of Good Omens! He had this to say about the newcomer…
“Once we had finished writing Good Omens, back in the dawn of prehistory, Terry Pratchett and I started plotting a sequel. There would have been a lot of angels in the sequel. When Good Omens was first published and was snapped up for the first time by Hollywood, Terry and I took joy in introducing our angels into the plot of a movie that was never made. So when, almost thirty years later, I started writing Good Omens for TV, one thing I knew was that our angels would have to be in there.
The leader of these angels is Gabriel. He is everything that Aziraphale isn’t: he’s tall, good-looking, charismatic and impeccably dressed. We were fortunate that Jon Hamm was available, given that he is already all of these things without even having to act. We were even more fortunate that he’s a fan of the books and a remarkable actor.”
After the huge success of American Gods, Amazon has rightly realised that the mind of Neil Gaiman (who’s on-board as Showrunner) is worth investing in and so it’s very exciting that his team-up with Discworld legend Terry Pratchett, that visits us in the shape of the novel ‘Good Omens’, is being adapted by Amazon Originals and has already confirmed two sterling leads. Michael Sheen and David Tennant will star in the six-part humorous fantasy drama that’ll launch globally on Prime Video (Sign up here!) in 2019, and it’ll also head to BBC Two at a later date.
Sheen will star as the somewhat fussy angel and rare book dealer Aziraphale, and Tennant will play his opposite number, the fast living demon Crowley, both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and of each other. So it’s really terrible news for both of them that, if Heaven and Hell have their way, the world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis has risen, tempers are flaring. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are ready to ride. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Expect that someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…
Good Omens will be directed by the excellent Douglas Mackinnon, whose credits include Doctor Who, the standalone Victorian episode of Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, winner of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie last year, and Outlander.
Michael Sheen had this to say:
“I first read Good Omens as a teenager and it’s been one of my favourite stories ever since. To be part of the team entrusted with bringing it alive on screen is a bit of a dream come true to be honest. To work alongside Neil, who I think is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, is incredibly exciting. And, just like the rest of the world, I’m a huge fan of David’s so I relish trying to save it with him.”
David Tennant added:
“Michael Sheen, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and directed by Douglas Mackinnon, it’s a dream team and a dream gig. I am very excited that I’ve been asked to be part of this amazing project. Bring on the Apocalypse!”
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