The actor books his first series regular role in the Gillian Flynn drama.
John Cusack is heading to television.
The 52-year-old actor has booked his first series regular gig in Amazon Prime Video's upcoming nine-episode drama, Utopia, from author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn, the streaming service announced Tuesday.
In Utopia, based on the U.K. series of the same name, a group of young adults who meet online are mercilessly hunted by a shadowy deep state organization after they come into possession of a near-mythical cult underground graphic novel -- they discover the conspiracy theories in the comic's pages may actually be real and are forced into the dangerous, unique and ironic position of saving the world.
Cusack will play the charismatic and media-savvy Dr. Kevin Christie, who is described as a brilliant biotech mind and has a philanthropic outlook. Christie altruistically wants to change the world through science.
Sasha Lane, Rainn Wilson, Dan Byrd, Cory Michael Smith, Ashleigh LaThrop, Desmin Borges, Farrah Mackenzie and Christopher Denham also star in the series. Flynn (Gone Girl, Widows) is the creator, executive producer and showrunner of Utopia, which is also executive produced by Sharp Objects' Jessica Rhoades, Sharon Hall, Karen Wilson and Dennis Kelly.
Cusack has rarely dabbled in scripted television, only lending his voice on a 1993 episode of Frasier and guest starring on HBO's Emily Mortimer comedy Doll & Em in 2013. He is best known for his decades-spanning work on the big screen, starting with his breakthrough '80s roles in Say Anything, Sixteen Candles and The Sure Thing, to High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank and Being John Malkovich. Cusack most recently starred in Never Grow Old and River Runs Red.
Amazon gave Utopia a direct-to-series order of nine episodes last April, after HBO let the project go.
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