In a real dream team scenario, Julia Roberts and Armie Hammer are teaming up for a new TV series, which will examine the Watergate scandal from a new angle, according to Deadline.
The two will appear alongside Sean Penn and Joel Edgerton in Gaslit, an adaptation of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast, the first season of which focused on the takedown of President Richard Nixon from perspectives that were previously little explored.
“You think you know the story, or maybe you don’t,” reads the description of Slate’s podcast. “But Watergate was stranger, wilder, and more exciting than you can imagine.”
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Hammer and Roberts previously appeared together in the 2012 Snow White adaptation Mirror, Mirror, with Roberts as the evil queen and Hammer as Prince Charming. (Obviously.) Their next project, which hails from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, will be absolutely nothing like that.
Roberts will play Martha Mitchell, wife of Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell. Hammer will portray John Dean, described by Deadline as a “young White House Counsel torn between his ambition and his struggle with whether he can lie to protect the President.”
It is the second time Roberts is working on a podcast adaptation. She and Esmail previously teamed up for Homecoming, which is based on the popular scripted podcast of the same name. She will not appear in the show’s second season but will remain aboard the series as one of its executive producers.
“To help realize this important chapter in our country’s history, my first call was to the brilliant Julia Roberts,” Esmail said in a statement to Deadline. “After her captivating performance in Homecoming, I knew Julia was the only person who could tackle the complex role of Martha Mitchell and lead our stellar cast in adapting this bizarre and controversial narrative.”
So far, no network is attached to the upcoming show, which hails from Universal Cable Productions. With a package this juicy, though, a series order just seems a matter of time.
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