The cast of Starz’ American Gods series has expanded by one, with Emily Browning coming on board as the female lead. Browning’s been cast to play Laura Moon in the series based on Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel, joining The 100‘s Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon and Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday. The series is targeting an April 2016 start of production.
Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and Michael Green (Heroes, Kings) are writing the series and serving as showrunners. Fuller and Green are also executive producing along with Craig Cegielski, Stefanie Berk, Neil Gaiman, and David Slade. Slade’s also attached to direct the pilot and other episodes.
“I’ve been fascinated by Emily Browning since A Series of Unfortunate Events,” said Gaiman. “She has a challenge ahead of her: Laura is a tricky character, and the Laura on the screen is even trickier and more dangerous than the one on the page. She’s going to have a wonderful time bringing Laura to life.”
“You don’t need a magical coin when you have Emily Browning. She brings a fascinating spark of life to every role she inhabits and we are tickled she will be lighting up Laura Moon and bringing her to life in more ways than one on American Gods,” added showrunners Fuller and Green.
Browning’s credits include Sleeping Beauty, Legend, Sucker Punch, Plush, and Pompeii.
The American Gods Plot: The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
As Laura Moon, Browning plays Shadow Moon’s wife, who has been preparing for her husband’s pending prison release. Little does she know that she will go on an unexpected journey that leads her to an epiphany about her relationship and affords her a second chance to get things right.
