TNT has revealed that actress Dakota Fanning (American Pastoral, The Twilight Saga) has joined the cast of the upcoming series The Alieniest. Fanning is set to play Sara Howard, a headstrong secretary at Police Headquarters, in the upcoming series based the Anthony Award-winning New York Times bestseller by Caleb Carr. She joins the recently-cast Daniel Brühl (Inglorious Bastards, Captain America: Civil War) and Luke Evans (The Girl on The Train, The Hobbit trilogy).
The Alienist is a psychological thriller set in the Gilded Age of New York City in 1896, a city of vast wealth, extreme poverty and technological innovation. When a series of haunting, gruesome murders of boy prostitutes grips the city, newly appointed police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt calls upon criminal psychologist (aka alienist) Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Brühl) and newspaper reporter John Moore (Evans) to conduct the investigation in secret. They are aided by a makeshift crew of singular characters, among them the intrepid Sara Howard, a young secretary on Roosevelt’s staff who is determined to become the first female police detective in New York City. Using the emerging disciplines of psychology and early forensic investigation techniques, this band of social outsiders tracks down one of New York City’s first serial killers.
Slated to premiere in late 2017 on TNT, The Alienist will be directed and executive-produced by BAFTA-nominated director Jakob Verbruggen (Black Mirror). The series is a co-production of Paramount Television and Turner’s Studio T. Emmy winner Cary Fukunaga (True Detective), Academy Award winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Oscar nominee Hossein Amini (Drive) and Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin and Rosalie Swedlin all serve as executive producers. Production will begin in early 2017 in Budapest.
