Oscars winners as Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman join Army of Shadows
Channel 4's upcoming drama Army of Shadows has landed two Academy Awards winners for its talented cast.
Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman have been cast in Army of Shadows.
The Dead Man Walking actress and The Crown star are the latest names attached to Channel 4's upcoming drama, which comes from the mind of MobLand creator Ronan Bennett.
The casting news has been confirmed by Channel 4, Studiocanal and Two Cities Television, with the pair of Academy Award winners officially part of the ensemble.
Their roles have yet to be confirmed, but filming for the thriller is underway in Paris and London.
They join a talented cast which also features Kit Harington, Paddy Considine, America Ferrera and Alex Hassell.
The six-part series is inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 film and Joseph Kessel’s seminal book of the same name, which tell a dramatised story of the French Resistance to the Nazi Occupation of France during World War 2.
The upcoming show is hailed as a "bold new story" exploring "how resistance takes shape in an occupied Great Britain".
Melville's family and the Kessel estate have both supported the development and production of the show.
The synopsis reads: "Britain looks almost normal, but the flags are different, the news is careful, and nobody says certain things out loud anymore. But everyone can feel it.
"Somewhere beneath the surface of ordinary life something has gone terribly, quietly wrong.
"Out of the shadows emerges a former soldier known only as Berry, who starts building a secret resistance network. He knows one thing above all else: don't act before you're ready.
"An unlikely group starts to coalesce around him - people who've decided they can't look away any longer: a soldier, a student, a radiographer, a journalist. Ordinary people, with ordinary lives, making an extraordinary and irreversible choice."
They are battling against "a state with unlimited reach, a ruthless minister who'll do whatever it takes to maintain 'order', and an American intelligence operative called Jessie, who is very, very good at her job".
The synopsis concludes: "Army of Shadows is a tense, propulsive thriller about what resistance actually costs.
"If your country were occupied, what would you do?"
