Starz announced today that Oscar®-nominated actor Stephen Rea (The Honourable Woman, V for Vendetta, The Crying Game), Emmy®-award winner Richard Schiff ("The Affair," "Ballers," "The West Wing") and Sarah Bolger ("Agent Carter," "Once Upon a Time," "Into the Badlands") have joined the Starz Original series COUNTERPART as recurring guest stars.
"Counterpart," from MRC, Anonymous Content and Gilbert Films, is the story of 'Howard Silk' played by Oscar® winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, The Accountant, La La Land), a lowly cog in a bureaucratic agency, who discovers that the agency he works for is really guarding a crossing into a parallel dimension. Through Howard and his "Counterpart" on the other side, the show will navigate themes of identity, what ifs, and lost love.
Richard Schiff will portray Director of Diplomacy Roland Fancher, an expert litigator and feared power negotiator between both dimensions in the series - an espionage thriller with a metaphysical twist. 'Fancher' is the head of the Office of Interchange's diplomacy department, responsible for negotiating the exchange of prisoners between worlds.
Schiff is currently on Max Landis' offbeat comedy "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" on BBC America, and opposite Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson on HBO's "Ballers." Schiff recently appeared in compelling recurring roles in the critically acclaimed Showtime's "The Affair," black comedy "House of Lies," and DirecTV's "Rogue." Schiff won a 2000 Emmy Award® for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work as the White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler on "The West Wing." He was nominated for that role again in 2001 and 2002.
Since his film debut, Schiff has appeared in over 40 features, including
SPIKE Lee's Malcolm X, Danny DeVito's Hoffa, Nora Ephron's Michael and co-starred in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Most recently, Schiff starred in the films Kill The Messenger, Man of Steel and Entourage. Upcoming projects include Rob Reiner's Shock and Awe and Gus Van Sant's and Dustin Lance Black's
ABC Series "When We Rise." Schiff is repped by Paradigm Talent Agency and
LEVERAGE Management.
Stephen Rea will play Alexander Pope, a charming old-world Englishman and an old friend of Prime, he's an éminence grise who pulls strings from behind the scenes and knows where all the bodies are buried -- sometimes quite literally -- in the complex and covert machinations on the "other side." Rea was nominated for an Academy Award® in 1994 for The Crying Game and won a BAFTA TV Award in 2015 for Best Supporting Actor for The Honourable Woman. He is repped by ICM Partners and Manager Sue Leibman-Barking Dog Entertainment.
Sarah Bolger plays Anna, a mysterious young woman whose appearance on the "other side" threatens to disrupt the tenuous truce between Howard and his counterpart. Bolger is repped by CAA, Troika and Mosaic.
"Counterpart" also stars Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, Hyde Park on Hudson, "Manhattan") as 'Emily Burton Silk;' Harry Lloyd (The Theory of Everything, Jane Eyre, "Manhattan") as 'Peter Quayle;' Nazanin Boniadi ("Homeland," Ben-Hur, Hotel Mumbai) as 'Clare;' Nicholas Pinnock (Captain America: The First Avenger, "Marcella," "A.D.
THE BIBLE Continues") as 'Ian Shaw;' Sara Serraiocco (Salvo, Cloro, Worldly Girl) as 'Baldwin' and Ulrich Thomsen ("The Blacklist," "Banshee") as 'Aldrich.'
Casting by Jeanne McCarthy, Nicole Abellera, and Leslie Woo from McCarthy/Abellera.
Norwegian-born director Morten Tyldum, best known for his Oscar®-nominated work on The Imitation Game (2014), as well as for Headhunters (2011), and Buddy (2003), directed the first episode. Tyldum also directed Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt in the
Science fiction thriller film Passengers.
Created and written by Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), "Counterpart" is executive produced by Tyldum and Marks with Amy Berg ("Da Vinci's Demons"), Gary Gilbert (La La Land) with Gilbert Films, Jordan Horowitz (La La Land), Keith Redmon (The Revenant) and Bard Dorros (Spotlight) with Anonymous Content. Simmons also serves as a producer.
Starz ordered two seasons of 10 episodes each of "Counterpart" in 2015. The series began production in December 2016 in Los Angeles and will continue in additional locations across the U.S. and Europe.
Images courtesy of Starz
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