THR is reporting that Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany has signed on to star alongside Matthew Rhys (The Americans) in HBO’s upcoming Perry Mason reboot from Robert Downey Jr.’s Team Downey production company.
According to the trader, the Emmy-winning Maslany will portray Sister Alice, described as “the leader of the Radiant Assembly of God, she preaches three sermons a day to a hungry congregation and a radio audience that spans the country, she’s an entertainer, politician and God’s conduit to the City of Angels. Sister Alice wields great power when she speaks and plans to use it in ways only she can know.”
The long-gestating Perry Mason series was originally set up as a starring vehicle for Downey, and will tell an origin story for Eric Stanley Gardner’s legendary defense attorney, taking place in 1930s Los Angeles during the recession.
Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald are serving as writers and showrunners on Perry Mason, as well as executive producing with Downey and his wife and Team Downey partner Susan Downey. The official synopsis for the series reads:
While the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression, this city is booming! Oil! Olympic Games! Talking Pictures! Evangelical Fervor! And a child kidnapping gone very, very wrong! Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, the limited series follows the origins of American Fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason. When the case of the decade breaks down his door, Mason’s relentless pursuit of the truth reveals a fractured city and just maybe, a pathway to redemption for himself.
Originally published April 17, 2019. Updated April 16, 2019.
