Earlier this week it was announced that Walton Goggins (Vice Principals) has been cast as L.A. police detective Jack Vincennes in the L.A. Confidential TV pilot (played by Kevin Spacey in the 1997 movie), and now comes word that Sense8 and Stargate Universe actor Brian J. Smith has been cast in the Guy Pearce role as Detective Ed Exley.
As per THR, Smith’s Exley is described as “as cold (though not without a conscience), brilliant, authoritative and ambitious. He’s a uniformed L.A. cop and, as the son of former hero detective turned real estate developer Preston Exley, he is determined to make his mark and become worthy in his father’s eyes. Competing against the memory of his deceased brother, his father’s favorite, Ed will do anything to prove himself. He wants nothing more than to make detective and is single-minded in his pursuit.”
The small screen adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel “follows three homicide detectives, a female reporter and a Hollywood actress whose paths intersect as the detectives pursue a sadistic serial killer among the secrets and lies of gritty, glamorous 1950s Los Angeles.”
Jordan Harper (The Mentalist) and Anna Fricke (Being Human) are serving as co-showrunners on the pilot, which is said to give the novel a “2018 treatment in terms of tone, music and style.”
