Nick Offerman is one of the coolest actors working today, and he has now signed on to play a character with a very cool description: he is going to be playing "the U.S. Ambassador and father to Warlock, the child mistaken for the Antichrist" in Good Omens, the six-part television adaptation of the Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter.
Gaiman has written the adaptation himself, telling a story set in
2018, when the Apocalypse is near and Final Judgment is set to descend upon humanity. According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.
So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, and tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming war. And… someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.
Offerman joins a cast that includes David Tennant as Crowley; Michael Sheen as Aziraphale; Adria Arjona as occultist Anathema Device; Nina Sosanya as Sister Mary Loquacious of the Chattering Order of St Beryl; Ned Dennehy as Duke of Hell Hastur; Ariyon Bakare as Duke of Hell Ligur; Jack Whitehall as witch hunter Pulsifer, a.k.a. Newt; Miranda Richardson as psychic medium / courtesan Madame Tracy; Michael McKean as Sgt. Shadwell, the leader of the witch-finder army; Jon Hamm as archangel Gabriel; Anna Maxwell Martin as Beelzebub, "the ultimate demon"; Mireille Enos as War; Lourdes Faberes as Pollution; Yusuf Gatewood as Famine; and Josie Lawrence as Agnes Nutter. The actor playing the remaining Horseman of the Apocalypse, Death, hasn't been announced, but Gaiman was hoping the character would be played by Death.
Putting Offerman in the mix as a man whose child is accused of being the Antichrist sounds like a brilliant casting decision, it should be a lot of fun to see him handle material like that. Gaiman said of his casting,
There may not be anyone alive who can deadpan a line quite as well as Nick Offerman,. He’s a terrific performer, and has to say a lot of things in Good Omens that are humanly impossible to deliver with a straight face. Fortunately, Nick is not entirely human. We are very lucky to have him.”
Good Omens will air on BBC Two in the UK and will be available for viewing through Amazon Prime in the US sometime in 2019.