Giancarlo Giannini Set to Join the Cast of George Clooney's Upcoming CATCH 22 Series

According to Variety, Oscar-nominated Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini ("Swept Away") has joined the cast of George Clooney's "Catch-22" TV series, which is set to start shooting in Sardinia this week.

Giannini will play Marcello, the owner of a ROME brothel who is "weathered and once handsome but still debonair," according to a statement issued by producers of the six-part adaptation of Joseph Heller's anti-war classic. The series is scheduled to air in 2019 on Hulu in the U.S.

Giannini is the only Italian talent announced so far in the "Catch-22" cast, though about 300 Sardinian extras were recently recruited for scenes involving military activity on the Italian island, where Clooney - who is co-directing as well as starring and producing - has set up camp in a villa on its Emerald Coast, according to Italian press reports.

Set in Italy during World War II, the show centers on Capt. John Yossarian (to be played by Christopher Abbott, as previously announced), a U.S. Air Force bombardier who, while trying to complete the number of flight missions required to go home, must contend with an absurd bureaucratic rule.

Giannini's best-known starring roles have been in films directed by Lina Wertmüller. In addition to Swept Away and Seven Beauties, he also appeared in The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, A Night Full of Rain, and Francesca e Nunziata. He played the role of the protective father, Alberto Aragón, in A Walk in the Clouds in 1995. He played the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in the 2000 Dune miniseries. In 2002, he starred in the horror film Darkness. Perhaps his best-known recent role is as French agent René Mathis in the 21st and 22nd James Bond films, Casino Royale and its sequel Quantum of Solace.

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Photo Credit: Walter McBride

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