Gillian Anderson has been killing it on TV lately. She has appeared in the reboot of The X-Files, the British thriller series The Fall, and even the beloved, cancelled-too-soon Hannibal. Now she's joining the cast hotly anticipated American Gods (Bryan Fuller just so happens to be showrunning, so I guess there's no question how she got here), adapted by Starz from Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name.
Anderson will be playing Media, the mouthpiece for the New Gods. Media "functions as the New Gods’ 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, to their iPhones in their hands while they watch their TVs. Ever the perky spokesperson, and always in control, she spins stories in whatever direction best suits her."
This is a rare villainous role for the iconic actress, and I can't wait to she what she does with the part.
Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) and Michael Green (The River) are writing and serving as the showrunners. The plot centers on:
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.
The series will star Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday / the Norse god Odin; Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon; Emily Browning as Shadow's wife, Laura Moon; Pablo Schreiber as down-on-his-luck leprechaun Mad Sweeney, Yetide Badaki as goddess of love Bilquis; Bruce Langley as New God Technical Boy; Crispin Glover as New Gods coalition leader Mr. World; and Jonathan Tucker as Shadow's confidante Low Key Lyesmith.
Also starring: Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya, the eldest of three sisters who watch over the constellations; Peter Stormare as Slavic god of darkness and evil Czernobog; Chris Obi as Egyptian god of the death Anubis; and Mousa Kraish as The Jinn, a mythical creature of the fire who understands a person’s deepest desires better than they do.