After delivering his political satire television series WHO IS AMERICA? for Showtime, chameleon actor Sacha Baron Cohen is dressing down for his next project called THE SPY. Built as a six-episode, hour-long limited series for Netflix, THE SPY finds Cohen assuming the role of real-life Mossad agent Eli Cohen.
THE SPY, which hails from HOMELAND Emmy winner and PRISONERS OF WAR creator Gideon Raff, has Cohen's character finding it difficult to "strip off his double identity" when he's able to slip into his character so easily.
Starring alongside Cohen for the superspy drama is Noah Emmerich (THE AMERICANS) as Dan Peleg, “Eli’s Mossad handler who tires to ease his own guilt over the sacrifices Eli makes." Also set to appear as a player of Cohen's most dangerous game is Hadar Totem (HOMELAND) as Eli's wife, Nadia. According to her character description, Nadia "is left to raise their family on her own and knows something isn’t right about her husband’s government job.” Colony's Waleed Zuaiter also stars as Amin Al-Hafz, “a military officer who thinks he’s found the perfect ally in the undercover Cohen.”
It's been quite some time since we've seen Cohen taking on a role that doesn't involve him lampooning political figures or exposing business tycoons for nefarious practices. At the very least, Cohen is still sporting his knack for deception with THE SPY. In fact, according to THR, while Cohen was living in Damascus in the early '60s, he became close enough to ambitious military leaders and their wealthy friends to earn a game-changing level of trust and information about Syria's secret anti-Israel activities. With a silver tongue that could talk him into the most secret of circles, it should be interesting to see how Cohen manipulates his targets when THE SPY arrives on Netflix this September 6.