Sean Penn Todd Williamson/Getty Images for The Hollywood Reporter
The Lionsgate-produced project is based on Jon Meacham’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography, 'American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.'
Sean Penn is heading to HBO.
The five-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner is set to star as Andrew Jackson in a Lionsgate-produced miniseries based on Jon Meacham’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. The six-hour event series is being written by Narcos creators Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard.
The high-profile entry centers on the seventh president, who was orphaned at the hands of the British and is billed as a self-made man, a western outsider, a violent warrior and a beloved general who became the country’s first “People’s President.” With the fate of the U.S. certain, Jackson fought an intractable Congress and special interests to preserve the Union at all costs – leaving a mixed and deeply controversial legacy.
Penn will also executive produce the series, which was brought to the studio and network by Facebook’s head of market development Matt Jacobson. He, too, will executive produce alongside Miro and Bernard. Meacham will serve as a consultant on the project, which is set to begin production in 2016.
The news comes as Penn’s interests continue to expand. The actor/director, best known for performances in films including Dead Man Walking, I Am Sam and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, has spent much of his off-camera time of late as a founder and CEO of J/P Haitian Relief Organization. As a director, he’s currently in post-production on The Last Face, a drama starring his former fiance Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem.
It’s worth noting that HBO earned 13 Emmys for its last presidential miniseries, John Adams, which starred Paul Giamatti in the eponymous role. The one-off is a coup for Lionsgate, too, which has been quietly and scrappily growing its TV portfolio. The latter now includes more than 30 series, including Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, WGN America’s Manhattan and Hulu’s Golden Golden nominee Casual among them.
Penn is repped by CAA and Hirsch Wallerstein; Miro and Bernard, who also wrote Disney's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, are repped by UTA.
HBO
