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After honing his detective skills multiple times as legendary detective Sherlock Holmes, repeatedly saving the world in a fancy iron suit, and ultimately ending up on the wrong side of a CGI dragon, few would have blamed the superstar Robert Downey Jr. to maybe get away from the spotlight to enjoy a well-deserved break. Not so fast. The prolific actor has lined up his next project with big enough actors, which will feature his big leap into the world of television.
According to Deadline, Downey Jr. got a co-starring role in the serial adaptation of the award-winning novel The sympathizer. Oh, and no less a dream team than HBO and independent studio A24 will join forces for this one. This role comes with an added wrinkle for Downey Jr, as he will apparently play many supporting characters, including “an aspiring Orange County congressman, CIA agent, and Hollywood director.”
It’s absolutely wild and looks like a great opportunity to flex some long overdue action muscles. In fact, Deadline reports that it was a major selling point for him as well as his interest in the story.
What is the sympathizer?
Written by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the spy thriller and satirical story (which perhaps explains these multiple roles) follows a Franco-Vietnamese biracial communist spy until the end of the Vietnam War and his subsequent defection to the United States. As impressive as Downey Jr.’s resume is undeniably, it doesn’t enough match the invoice of this description and therefore research is currently underway for the main part. The rest of the cast will also be completed, consisting mostly of Vietnamese characters. Deadline also shares a description of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, describing it as a “mind-boggling exploration of identity and America, a gripping spy novel and a powerful story of love and friendship.”
The report adds that this project will not take a strictly limited series approach, as befits the scope and scale of the book. We have already heard that Old boy director Park chan-wook is on board as a co-showrunner with Don McKellar.
The synopsis of the novel (from GoodReads) is as follows:
It is April 1975 and Saigon is in chaos. In his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army drinks whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, draws up a list of those who will be admitted on board the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one of them, the captain, secretly observes and reports the group to a Viet Cong superior. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man raised by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to college in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the cause Communist.
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