‘Homeland’ star Claire Danes is all set to play the lead role in Apple TV+’s upcoming series ‘The Essex Serpent’. The Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner actress will be replacing Keira Knightley in the show, who reportedly left it owning to concerns for childcare during the pandemic.
‘The Essex Serpent’ on Apple TV+ is an adaptation of Sarah Perry’s award winning 2016 novel of the same name that is set in 1893. The story follows Cora (Danes), a newly widowed woman who, having survived and released from an abusive marriage, relocates from Victorian London to the small village of Aldwinter in Essex. There, she becomes intrigued by a local superstition that a mythical creature known as the Essex Serpent has returned to the area.
Clio Bernard (‘Dark River’, ‘The Selfish Giant’) is the director for ‘The Essex Serpent’ while Anna Symon (‘Mrs Wilson’) heads the writing team. Alongside Bernard and Symon, the show will be executive produced by Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Patrick Walters, Iain Canning and Emile Sherman. See-Saw Films and Andrea Cornwell serve as producers for the Apple TV+ series.
Danes is an accomplished actress who has won Golden Globe award for ‘My So-Called Life’, ‘Homeland’ (twice), and for the HBO film ‘Temple Grandin’. Other than this she has also received three Emmy awards including two for ‘Homeland’ and one for ‘Temple Grandin’.