Mayfair Witches: Jack Huston is Lasher in Anne Rice AMC series

I haven’t read Anne Rice‘s Mayfair Witches novels, but given the fact that one of them is titled Lasher I have to assume that the character with that name has a prominent role in them. AMC is now in production on a series adaptation of the Mayfair Witches stories, and Variety has confirmed that Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) has been cast in the role of Lasher. He’s described as being one of Rice’s “most mysterious and sensual characters – a powerful, shape-shifting entity who has been bound to the Mayfair witches for hundreds of years.”

Huston joins a cast that includes Alexandra Daddario (We Summon the Darkness), Harry Hamlin (Mad Men), Annabeth Gish (Rim of the World), Tongayi Chrisu (Palm Springs), Beth Grant (No Country for Old Men), Erica Gimpel (God Friended Me), and Jen Richards (Her Story).

Rice’s three Mayfair Witches books center on

an intuitive young neurosurgeon who discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches. As she grapples with her newfound powers, she must contend with a sinister presence that has haunted her family for generations.

First published in 1990 with The Witching Hour, the Mayfair Witches trilogy also includes sequels Lasher (1993) and Taltos (1994).

Daddario is playing Rowan, “a brilliant doctor who grapples with her fate as the heir to a family of powerful witches.” Hamlin is taking on the role of Cortland Mayfair, “current reigning patriarch of the Mayfair clan with a voracious appetite for more money, more power and more life”. Gish is taking on the recurring role of Diedre, Chrisu is series regular Citroen, Grant is the recurring Carlotta, Gimpel is the recurring Ellie, and Richards is Jojo. It’s not clear whether the Jojo role is regular or recurring.

Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) is overseeing the building of AMC’s Rice franchises. Esta Spaulding and Michelle Ashford, both of whom previously worked on Masters of Sex, are writers and executive producers on Mayfair Witches, with Ashford also serving as the showrunner.

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches is, of course, being filmed in New Orleans.

Have you read the Mayfair books? If so, what do you think of Jack Huston being cast as Lasher? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.