NBC’s ‘Quantum Leap’ Pilot Adds Ernie Hudson & More To Cast
The ‘Quantum Leap’ pilot from NBC has added four more to the cast to join Raymond Lee, who takes the leading role. They are ‘Ghostbusters’ star Ernie Hudson, along with Mason Alexander Park (‘Cowboy Bebop’), Nanrisa Lee (‘Bosch’), and newcomer Caitlin Bassett.
For those of you unfamiliar with the original series, it starred Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist working on a government experiment into time travel. When the government threaten to cut his funding, Sam takes drastic action, stepping into the Quantum Leap Accelerator, vanishing from the present day, and becoming trapped in the past. However, he isn’t in his own body but has “leapt” into the body of someone else. Aided by a hologram of his friend Admiral Al Calavicci (played by Dean Stockwell) and the project’s supercomputer Ziggy (voiced by Deborah Pratt), he soon discovers the only way to move time periods is to correct something that went wrong in that person’s life, allowing him to “leap” into another random body and time, hoping his next leap will be the leap home.
The new series is a continuation from the original, whilst also something of a reboot too. The series sees Raymond Lee (‘Kevin Can F**k Himself’) take the role of Dr. Ben Seong, a world-renowned physicist who has picked up the baton of the Quantum Leap project started by Bakula’s Dr. Beckett. It’s been 30 years since Sam stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now a new team has been assembled to restart the project in the hopes of understanding the mysteries behind the machine and the man who created it.
Ernie Hudson lands the role of Herbert “Magic” Williams, a Vietnam veteran and head of the time travel project at Quantum Leap. Using a bit of politicking and his military know-how to keep the Pentagon at bay, Magic buys the team some time to rescue Ben but expects answers once he’s back. In an interesting twist (as someone pointed out in the comments below – thanks Rachel!), “Magic” is also a person Sam “jumped” into in the episode ‘The Leap Home: Part II’ of the original series! Hudson is, of course, best known for his role as Winston Zeddemore in the ‘Ghostbusters’ franchise, but more recently has appeared in ‘L.A.’s Finest’ and BET drama ‘The Family Business’.
Nanrisa Lee plays Jenn, head of security at Quantum Leap headquarters. She previously played Tiffany Hsu in Prime Video series ‘Bosch’, and also popped up in series such as ‘The Morning Show’, ‘American Crime Story’, and ‘CSI: Vegas’.
Mason Alexander Park takes the role of Ian, chief architect of Quantum Leap’s AI program. Park recently played Gren in Netflix’s live-action ‘Cowboy Bebop’, and can next be seen as Desire in Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Sandman’, also for Netflix.
Newcomer Caitlin Bassett lands the role of Addison, project lead at Quantum Leap HQ who operates state-of-the-art technology to communicate with an individual time travelling in the past. This would sound like Addison will be the replacement for Dean Stockwell’s “Al” in the original series.
This new iteration of ‘Quantum Leap’ comes from Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, co-showrunners of NBC series ‘La Brea’, who will write the pilot and exec produce, with ‘Blindspot’ creator Martin Gero also exec producing. Original ‘Quantum Leap’ creator/EP Don Bellisario also exec produces alongside original EP Deborah Pratt (who also provided the voice for Ziggy in the original series.)
Regarding the possible return of Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, there have been some discussions, but as of right now, his involvement in the project is “to be determined”. Dean Stockwell, who played Al, sadly passed away at the age of 85 in November 2021.
We should stress, ‘Quantum Leap’ has only been ordered for a pilot right now, so may not go anywhere, but we’ll let you know if and when we hear more!
