Fox's upcoming event series Wayward Pines is adding to its all-star cast.
Political Animals and Watchmen alum Carla Gugino has booked a leading role in the limited series from Chad Hodge (The Playboy Club) and M. Night Shyamalan, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The 10-episode drama is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Blake Crouch and is described as a thriller in the vein of Twin Peaks. The project revolves around Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon), a Secret Service agent who arrives in the bucolic town of Wayward Pines, Id., on a mission to find two missing federal agents. But instead of answers, Ethan's investigation only turns up more questions. Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the life he knew, from the husband and father he was, until he must face the terrifying reality that he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.
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Gugino will play Kate Hewson, Ethan's ex-Secret Service partner and a resident of Wayward Pines. She's smart, capable, loyal, fiery, blunt and fearless and the love that Kate and Ethan once shared still simmers just below the surface.
Gugino joins a cast that also includes Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter), playing Nurse Pam, who first takes care of Ethan when he wakes up in the Wayward Pines hospital.
Gugino's TV credits include USA Network's Political Animals, New Girl, Californication and Entourage. She most recently had a co-starring role in ABC's David Shore drama pilot, Doubt. The actress, repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Sloane Offer, is currently on Broadway in Daniel Pearle's A Kid Like Jake at Lincoln Center. On the film side, she recently co-starred alongside Patrick Stewart in the indie Match.
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The Playboy Club's Hodge penned the script, with Shyamalan, Hodge, Donald De Line and Ashwin Rajan onboard to exec produce the FX Productions effort. Fox landed the project, based on a spec from Hodge, after a competitive bidding situation. Fox will bow the 10-episode drama in 2014.
Wayward and the revived 24 are the first two event series greenlit at Fox with several others in development as the network looks to limited fare as a way to bridge the gaps between seasons and push into year-round scripted programming.
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
