Starz announced Orlando Jones (Sleepy Hollow) has been added to the cast of American Gods, based on Neil Gaiman’s popular fantasy novel. Demore Barnes (12 Monkeys) has also joined the much-anticipated series which stars Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith, Gillian Anderson as Media, Peter Stormare as Czernobog, and Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya.
According to Starz, Jones will be playing Mr. Nancy, “the old African trickster god more commonly known as Anansi, and one of Mr. Wednesday’s (Ian McShane) oldest confidantes. Like Wednesday, Nancy is ready to bring this new America (and its new gods) to its knees, desperate to light a fire and watch the whole world burn.” Barnes has been cast as Mr. Ibis, “the keeper of stories, past and present, and he recounts them with great relish. His old fashioned sensibilities do not preclude a wry wit.”
American Gods has Hannibal‘s Bryan Fuller and Heroes‘ Michael Green on board as writers and showrunners. Fuller and Green are also executive producing along with author Gaiman and director David Slade. Slade will direct the pilot and additional episodes.
The Plot: American Gods 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.
