TV Casting: RED MARS, APOCALYPSE SLOUGH, Ian McShane in RAY DONOVAN

Red Mars, Apocalypse Slough, Ray Donovan, and other TV productions have made recent TV show casting, TV movie casting, and TV directing news. These shows and movies air on SpikeTV, NBC, and Showtime.

Game of Thrones (HBO)

Jodhi May will be playing the role of Maggy the Frog in season 5.

Maggy the Frog is a mysterious figure whose brief presence in young Cersei’s life makes a long-lasting impression.

Isabella Steinbarth will be playing young Cersei’s brunette friend. Given that this is for the Maggy the Frog scene, it seems likely that the thirteen-year-old actress will be playing an equivalent of the book character Melara Hetherspoon.

Entertainment Weekly previously confirmed that season 5 was expected to open with a flashback sequence. Steinbarth appearing in episode 1 is in line with that report.

Ray Donovan (Showtime)

Ian McShane (Deadwood) will guest star in a season-long arc of the hit SHOWTIME drama series RAY DONOVAN. McShane will play Malcolm Finney, a prominent movie producer and billionaire who hires Ray to get his family out of a potentially catastrophic situation, eventually forming a very powerful relationship with one another.

Red Mars (SpikeTV)

J. Michael Straczynski has been tapped to write Red Mars, Spike TV’s scripted J. Michael Straczynski drama series project in development based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s bestselling “hard” science-fiction trilogy about the colonization and terraforming transformation of Mars into a place where humans can sustainably live.

Roadies (Showtime)

Ron White (Blue Collar Comedy Tour), Jacqueline Byers (Ascension) and Branscombe Richmond (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) have been cast…in Showtime‘s hourlong comedy pilot Roadies

White will play Phil, the most famous and colorful road manager of all-time, a weathered legend in the rock world; Byers plays Natalie Shin, a crazy-eyed, scarily ingenious super-fan/stalker of the band, who will stop at nothing to get close to them; and Richmond is Puna – Hawaiian, clairvoyant, in charge of band security, Puna has access to other planes of knowledge.

Imogen Poots, Rafe Spall, Colson “MGK” Baker, Peter Cambor and Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes also star.

Billions (Showtime)

Kerry Condon (HBO’s Luck, AMC’s The Walking Dead) and Toby Leonard Moore (John Wick) have been cast…in the Showtime drama pilot Billions…Condon…will play Lara Axelrod, Bobby’s (Lewis) wife. Moore…plays Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Connerty, American born, blue collar and smart, but thinks he owes all his success to his ability to outwork the world.

Apocalypse Slough (NBC)

Rob Lowe will star in Apocalypse Slough, the 10-part series

The project, described as an adrenaline-fueled witty epic, follows an eclectic group of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation: a collision is imminent with an eight-mile wide comet that’s destined to wipe out all life on Earth. Together, they hunker beneath the town of Slough, about 20 miles west of London, to watch the end of the world on TV.

We hear Lowe will play Father Jude, who holds the position of Devil’s Advocate in the Vatican. He is a charismatic, irreverent, rebellious but also deeply moral man who is passionate about his faith but doesn’t feel the need to constantly prove it. The news of the impending apocalypse brings him the greatest challenge of his life — one that will shake his faith, force him to question his vows, and bring him face-to-face with his past.

Apocalypse Slough…will be directed by Emmy-nominated Michael Engler (30 Rock) and is written by Iain Hollands (Beaver Falls). NBC Universal International TV Distribution is handling international sales, with a U.S. broadcast partner expected to come onboard soon.

Lowe…will be joined by Megan Mullally, Jenna Fischer, Matthew Baynton, Paterson Joseph and Joel Fry.

Characters include a foul-mouthed priest, an unhinged white supremacist, a mild-mannered bank manager, a germ-phobic cyber-terrorist, a five-star general and a child who (possibly) rose from the dead. Some of them are destined to make it to a bunker deep beneath the ground, and as a result will become the unlikely (and frankly, somewhat unsuitable) future of mankind.

Bream Gives Me the Hiccups (Amazon)

Jesse Eisenberg is…adapting Bream Gives Me the Hiccups as a half-hour comedy for Amazon.

Written on spec, the comedy is based on a series of short stories that The Social Network star writes for McSweeney’s.

Eisenberg wrote the script on spec and will executive produce and direct the project.

Bream centers on a privileged and precocious 9-year-old restaurant critic who visits different eateries with his alcoholic mother, reviewing everything, often with his friend Matthew.

Fresh Off The Boat (ABC)

Luna Blaise will…be seen in ABC’s February debut sitcom Fresh Off The Boat in a guest starring arc as Nicole, a girl who lives in the same neighborhood as young Eddie Huang.

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Source: Watchersonthewall, Deadline, Thewrap, Hollywoodreporter