Hugh Laurie Joining New Season of Apple TV+ Series
Apple TV+ renewed the critically-acclaimed series Tehran for a third season and added a new star to the ensemble cast. House actor Hugh Laurie will play a key role in the Israeli series about Iranian-Jewish Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan, played by Niv Sultan. Tehran won Best Drama Series at the 2021 International Emmy Awards, becoming the first Israeli show to do so.
Laurie will star as Eric Peterson, a South African nuclear inspector. Laurie is a 10-time Emmy nominee and best known for playing the eccentric Dr. Gregory House in House. He also starred in the AMC limited series The Night Manager, HBO's VEEP, and the movies The Personal History of David Copperfield and Tomorrowland. He most recently starred in the HBO comedy Avenue 5. "We are so excited to have the brilliant Hugh Laurie join Niv and the incredibly talented cast in a new storyline that has all the makings of an unforgettable season," Morgan Wandell, head of international programming for Apple TV+, said in a statement to Deadline.
Tehran begins with Tamar, a young Jewish woman born in Iran and raised in Israel, assigned to go on an undercover mission in Tehran to disable a nuclear reactor. She went rogue at the end of Season 2 and is still reeling from the deaths of her close allies. In Season 3, she has to reinvent herself to earn Mossad's trust back if she wants to survive. The series was created by Moshe Zonder, Dana Eden, and Maor Kohn.
The ensemble cast also includes Shaun Toub, Shervin Alenabi, Menashe Noy, Liraz Charhi, Shila Ommi, and Darius Homayoun. Glenn Close joined the cast in Season 2 as a British agent stationed in Tehran, and Homeland star Navid Negahban was a special guest in Season 1. Executive producers are Eden and Shula Spiegel for Donna and Shula Productions; Alon Aranya for Paper Plane Productions; Julien Leroux for Paper Entertainment; Peter Emerson for Cineflix Studios; Tony Saint, Daniel Syrkin, Moshe Zonder, Dari Shai Slutzky, and Tal Fraifeld for Israeli broadcaster Kan.
Laurie's casting in Tehran is not the only major news from Apple TV+ this week. The streamer is also developing a limited series based on Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent. Renate Reinsve, Peter Sarsgaard, and O-T Fagbenle joined the cast on Tuesday, reports Deadline. Jake Gyllenhaal will star in the same role Harrison Ford played in the 1990 film adaptation. David E. Kelley is writing the new series, which will be produced by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television.