Sky Atlantic has set a July UK air date for ‘The Plot Against America‘, a limited series from David Simon and Ed Burns, the team behind ‘The Wire’ and ‘Generation Kill’.
‘The Plot Against America’ is set in an alternate American history and centres on a Jewish family in New Jersey who watch the political rise of Charles Lindbergh, an aviator hero and xenophobic populist who becomes president, defeating Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, and turns the country toward fascism. This six-part re-imagining of history is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name.
“As one of our greatest novelists, Philip Roth was generally more known for narratives that went directly to the human heart and the human condition,” comments Simon, who was able to meet with Roth once to discuss the project before the novelist’s death in 2018. “But with ‘Plot,’ he delivered an emotionally moving political tract about our country taking a dry run at totalitarianism and intolerance. That it was published in 2004 makes it no less prescient a document at this moment in time. Roth was warning us that it can happen here. And it can.”
The series stars Zoe Kazan (‘The Deuce’) as Elizabeth “Bess” Levin, an insightful mother and homemaker who fears for the future as she tries to protect her family amid the escalating political climate; Morgan Spector (‘Boardwalk Empire’ and the upcoming ‘The Gilded Age’) as Herman Levin, her proud and opinionated husband who works as an insurance agent and tries to maintain normalcy and assert himself as an American citizen even as his country seems to be slipping into fascism, anti-Semitism and xenophobic isolationism; Winona Ryder (‘Stranger Things’, ‘Show Me a Hero’) as Evelyn Finkel, the unmarried, older sister to Bess whose own plans were arrested by years of caring for her infirm mother and is hungry to find her own place in life; John Turturro (‘The Night Of’) as Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, a politically conservative rabbi transplanted from Charleston, S.C. who seizes the reins of history to become a key figure in the emergent Lindbergh administration; Anthony Boyle (Broadway’s ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’) as Alvin Levin, the angry orphaned nephew who allows his own sense of injustice and political differences with his Uncle Herman to carry him from the streets of Newark to the battlefields of Europe and then back again; Azhy Robertson (‘Marriage Story’) as ten-year-old Philip Levin, the youngest of the Levin clan who copes with his own innocent curiosity and growing anxiety in a world that seems to be collapsing around him; and Caleb Malis (‘Blood Widow’) as Sandy Levin, the Levin’s artistic teenage son who rebels against his parents as his adolescence becomes entangled with his growing admiration for Lindbergh.
Supporting cast includes David Krumholtz (‘The Deuce’) as Monty Levin, the overbearing successful older brother of Herman whose sole focus is on running his wholesale produce business; Michael Kostroff (‘The Wizard of Lies’) as Shepsie Tirschwell, the realistic and cautious Newsreel Theater projectionist; and Jacob Laval (‘Team Marco’) as Seldon Wishnow, Philip’s geeky, introverted neighbour who is unaware of the increasingly violent political atmosphere.
Created by Simon and Burns; executive produced by Simon, Burns, Nina K. Noble, Megan Ellison, Sue Naegle, Susan Goldberg, Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum, and co-executive produced by Philip Roth and Dennis Stratton, ‘The Plot Against America’ marks the seventh collaboration between HBO and the Simon-Noble producing partnership. Others include ‘Show Me A Hero’, ‘Treme’, and ‘The Deuce’.
‘The Plot Against America‘ premieres Tuesday, 14th July 2020 on Sky Atlantic & NOW TV.
