Star Wars and Trainspotting actor Ewan McGregor will play the lead role in Showtime’s forthcoming British drama adaptation of Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow.
In the wake of the Russian Revolution, leading man McGregor (who has won an Emmy) finds himself on the wrong side of history as Count Alexander Rostov. Rostov is spared execution but is exiled to an upstairs room in a luxurious hotel, where he is unable to interact with the outside world because of the constant fear of being killed.
As the world around him swiftly evolves, he will go through a process of introspection throughout his time behind bars. It’s a fantastic, great narrative, and I’m extremely happy to get to play such a fabulous role,” McGregor said, expressing his delight at the opportunity to portray the character. Entertainment One, acting via Tom Harper’s Popcorn Storm Pictures, will produce A Gentleman in Moscow in tandem with Paramount International Studios (VIS). Harper expressed excitement about the project, saying that he was a fan of the best-selling novel and looked forward to working on it. A rare and delectable delicacy, I fell in love with the book the moment I picked it up six years ago, Harper remarked. We are overjoyed that Ewan will be playing the Count and glad that Amor has entrusted this wonderful team with bringing the Metropol to life.
At the Edinburgh Television Festival, Paramount Premium Group chairman and CEO David Nevins broke the casting announcement. The series will premiere in the United States on Showtime and worldwide on Paramount+. The creators of A Gentleman in Moscow are Ben Vanstone (All Creatures Great and Small) and Harper (War and Peace, Peaky Blinders). Towles and Xavier Marchand, the novel’s editor and publisher, will serve as the show’s executive producers (Nautilus, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris). The show’s first episode is scheduled to be shot later this year. McGregor will next lend his voice as Sebastian J. Cricket in Pinocchio, directed by Guillermo del Toro, and then return to on-screen acting in Everest, directed by George Mallory, before we get to see him play the Count.
The release date of A Gentleman in Moscow has not been set.