Originally published April 18, 2015. Updated April 12, 2018.
After reports last week that he’d entered final talks with AMC, it has now been confirmed that Dominic Cooper (Agent Carter) is set for the lead role of Rev. Jesse Custer in the Preacher TV adaptation, with writer and executive producer Seth Rogen breaking the news on Twitter.
Here’s the official character breakdown, via The Hollywood Reporter:
Jesse Custer is a preacher and former outlaw. He’s complex, dark and conflicted. A figure of coiled, dormant abilities both moral and physical. The character is the quintessential Man With a Past. Jesse returned to his small Texas hometown of Annville a little while back to be a preacher, like his daddy before him — who was killed before his eyes when he was 8. At first blush, Jesse’s pretty much a broken down drunken mess — both as a man and a preacher. He’s trying his best to connect with God and transmit some faith to his troubled congregation but they, in general, have come to not expect that much from him. He’s not the great man, the great preacher his daddy was — or so it would seem. Despite the clerical collar, Jesse’s actually a formidable fighter, a legacy from the violent, mysterious past he’s trying to put behind him. But when he’s pushed to the limit by Donnie Schenck, a Civil War re-enacting redneck wife beater, Jesse loses control and beats Donnie half to death in a vicious, horrific attack. Shaken by his inability to “hear God” and leave behind his darker instincts, Jesse decides to leave the pulpit and town altogether — until a strange, miraculous intervention takes place and Jesse discovers a new purpose and a new power. A power that will shake the world and threaten Heaven itself.”
Preacher is based upon the acclaimed comic book series from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and has been adapted by Rogen and his regular collaborator Evan Goldberg, along with Breaking Bad’s Sam Catlin. Also featuring in the cast are Ruth Negga (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) as Tulip, Ian Colletti (Rake) as Arseface, Joseph Gilgun (This Is England) as Cassidy and Lucy Griffiths (True Blood) as the newly-created character Emily Woodrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5&v=pnc360pUDRI&feature=player_embedded
