Lifetime's dystopian thriller The Lottery is adding Homeland and The Newsroom alums to its ranks.
Homeland (and Boss) alum Martin Donovan has boarded the conspiracy thriller as a series regular, while Newsroom's Salli Richardson-Whitfield will recur as a guest star, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Set in a dystopian future at a time when women stop having children, The Lottery features a world staring down the barrel of impending extinction. Remarkably, 100 embryos are successfully fertilized and a national lottery is held to decide the surrogates. As conflict, control and mystery over this important scientific breakthrough unfolds, government interests and power begin to dominate one of the most personal and basic elements of humanity — the right to have a family.
Donovan will play Darius Hayes, the calculating director of the country's Fertility Commission who is willing to use any strategy to achieve what he believes is the greater good. Richardson-Whitfield will recur as Gabrielle, the first lady of the United States who is desperate to have a child of her own.
Donovan and Richardson-Whitfield join a cast that includes Marley Shelton as Dr. Alison Scott, the brilliant fertility specialist whose breakthrough in fertilizing 100 viable eggs may have life and death consequences she didn't anticipate. Michael Graziadei (American Horror Story), Louise Lombard (CSI), Brian Stokes Mitchell (Glee), Lesley-Ann Brandt (Spartacus: War of the Damned) and David Alpay (The Vampire Diaries) also star.
Children of Men's Timothy J. Sexton penned the pilot and will executive produce the pilot alongside Dawn Olmstead (Prison Break). Danny Cannon (Nikita) will direct and executive produce the pilot, which hails from Grady Girl Productions and Warner Horizon Television.
Lifetime picked up The Lottery to pilot in September.
Donovan is repped by DBA; Richardson-Whitfield is with Innovative and Frontline.
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
