It looks as if Bryan Fuller likes to keep his friends close. Beloved badass Gillian Anderson has just joined one of the most anticipated adaptations of the year – Neil Gaiman's American Gods, set to debut on Starz.
The X-Files actor has been making headlines lately thanks to a fan campaign to cast her as the next James Bond, but she's quite busy with her television career. Having finished up Season 3 work as Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson for the BBC series, The Fall, and closing out her time as Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier on Hannibal, Anderson has signed on to work with Fuller once more. She'll join The 100's Ricky Whittle and Deadwood's Ian McShane, who have already been cast as Shadow Moon and Mr. Wednesday, respectively.
The Hollywood Reporter had the scoop writing:
The drama centers on a war brewing between old and new gods: The traditional gods of biblical and mythological roots from around the world are 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 (The 100's Ricky Whittle), is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), a con man but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation for a battle with the new deities.
Anderson will play Media, the mouthpiece for the New Gods, functioning as their public face and sales representative, by taking the form of various iconic celebrities. She lives off the attention and worship that people give to screens-to their laptops, their TVs, to their iPhones in their hands while they watch their TVs. Ever the perky spokesperson, and always in control, she spins stories in whatever direction best suits her.
David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hannibal) is set to direct the pilot (and likely more) as well as executive produce. Fuller and Michael Green are showrunners. Author Gaiman is also an executive producer and has gone on record to say how important it was to him to protect the racial diversity of his original cast of characters. Others cast for the series include Yetide Badaki, Emily Browning, Crispin Glover, and Cloris Leachman.
Meanwhile, Anderson has recently spoken about the future of The X-Files with TV Line saying “Fox owns this show. I can”t imagine, with the ratings that we”ve got and the way we ended this season, that there won”t be more X-Files. They will find a way to get that done. Because I spoke about it briefly with [Fox CEO] Dana Walden today, so there”s an appetite there and… a chance certainly to find how we”re gonna get ourselves off this precipice.”