It’s Official: Dominic Cooper to Star in AMC’s ‘Preacher’

April 17, 2015 11:20am PT by Lesley Goldberg

He'll play Jesse Custer in the controversial comic book adaptation.

It's official: Dominic Cooper has joined Preacher.

The Agent Carter alum has boarded the cast of AMC's comic book adaptation Preacher, The Hollywood Reporter has learned, moving from one comic book property to another.

Executive producer Seth Rogen also made the long-rumored news official with a tweet Friday: "We have Jesse Custer! @dominiccoop is gonna save our souls," he wrote.

Based on Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's controversial 1990s series from DC Comics imprint Vertigo, Preacher revolves around the Rev. Jesse Custer, a badass Texas preacher who, after losing his faith, learns that God has left heaven and forsaken his duties. Jesse becomes the only one who is able to track down God and hold him responsible for his abdication. Tulip O'Hare (Ruth Negga), Jesse's beer-guzzling vampire ex-girlfriend, accompanies him on his quest for answers. But the story doesn't end there: The Saint of Killers, an immortal killing machine and Western lone-gunman type, is hot on their trail, with his sights set on Jesse (Cooper).

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Here's the casting breakdown for the character: 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."

Cooper joins a cast that also includes True Blood's Lucy Griffiths as Emily Woodrow, a church organist and Jesse's loyal right hand; This Is England's Joseph Gilgun as Irish vampire Cassidy and Ian Colletti as Eugene Root (aka Arseface).

This Is the End duo Rogen and Evan Goldberg and Breaking Bad's Sam Catlin are adapting the comic for AMC via Sony Pictures Television. James Weaver will oversee the project, which was written by Catlin. Rogen and Goldberg will direct.

Cooper's credits include ABC's Marvel drama Agent Carter, which remains on the bubble, Dracula Untold, Need for Speed and Warcraft. He's repped by CAA and Markham Froggatt.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit