A year ago, Amazon announced its cast for its upcoming adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s 2016 novel The Power, which would feature an ensemble cast of characters led by Heather Agyepong and Leslie Mann.
Now, Deadline reports that Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption) is joining the cast, playing the Washington governor and antagonist to Mann who plays Margot, the mayor of Seattle.
Last year, Rainn Wilson (The Office) had been tapped to play the character, but according to Deadline, because production on the series was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic (it was set to begin shooting February 2020), scheduling conflicts arose. The series is now back in production.
The series is based on Alderman’s feminist science fiction novel, in which women around the world suddenly discover that they have the ability to control electricity, using it as a weapon against others. The book follows society as the power spreads wildly across the world, and quickly upends the established global order dominated by men (who can’t gain the power).
The book earned Alderman the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017, and a 10-episode adaptation from Amazon. The series doesn’t have a release date just yet, but the studio notes that fittingly, it’s been written by an all-women writer’s room.
