Starz’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ has added Gillian Anderson to the cast, which already includes Ricky Whittle as lead character Shadow Moon with Emily Browning as his wife Laura, as well as Cloris Leachman, Ian McShane, Pablo Schrieber, Peter Stormare, Yetide Badaki, Jonathan Tucker and Bruce Langley.

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Anderson will play Media, the new goddess of TV, whose powers are derived from the public’s love of screens: TV, smart phones and computers, just to name a few.  She manifests in the form of various celebrities, the first of which was Lucille Ball/Lucy Ricardo.

She serves as the new gods’ connection to the public and is capable of spinning stories to suit their needs.

‘American Gods’ tells the story of the rise of a new breed of gods, born from the public’s obsessions with media, celebrities, technology, money, drugs and other things.  Their rise results in a power struggle between them and the old gods from mythology and biblical origins.

The focal character, Shadow Moon, becomes the bodyguard and companion to Mr. Wednesday (McShane) who is really Odin from Norse mythology.  The pair embark on a cross country trip in order that Mr. Wednesday call rally his fellow old gods who have been dormant.

The show was created by Michael Green and Bryan Fuller, who will serve as showrunners.  Anderson previously worked with Fuller on ‘Hannibal’.

Anderson appears in the upcoming final season of ‘The Fall’.  And of course, she reprised her role as Dana Scully in this past winter’s ‘The X-Files’ revival miniseries.  It remains to be seen how Anderson’s casting on ‘American Gods’ will impact any future ‘X-Files’ projects.

Starz has not yet announced a premiere date for the show beyond “late 2016.”

Are you a fan of the novel?  Are you excited about the show?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter