A fairly big name has been added to the TV miniseries adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “unfilmable” novel ‘Good Omens’. Emmy award-winner Jon Hamm (‘Mad Men’) is set to portray archangel Gabriel, opposite David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale, a demon and an angel who join forces to prevent the end of days in order to protect their cushy country lives in rural England.
Photo creidt: s_bukley / Shutterstock.comThe role of Gabriel in the novel is fairly small, but writer Gaiman states that it has been expanded for the adaptation. (In fact, the role of most of the angels were expanded.) Regarding Hamm’s casting, he said:
“He is everything that Aziraphale isn’t. He’s tall, good-looking, charismatic and impeccably dressed. We were fortunate that Jon Hamm was available, given that he is already all of these things without even having to act.”
Since ‘Mad Men’, Hamm has continued working on various programs, mostly comedies, including ‘Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp’, ‘Children’s Hospital’ and ‘The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’, as well as doing voice work on ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ and in the ‘Minions’ movie. He was most recently seen in the flesh in Edgar Wright’s sleeper hit ‘Baby Driver’.
Hamm has expressed that he has been a fan of the original novel almost since it first came out and that he, like most, thought it was unfilmable. Hamm joins a cast that also includes Jack Whitehall, Michael McKean, Miranda Richardson and Adria Arjona.
‘Good Omens’ joins another TV project based on a Gaiman novel, ‘American Gods’ which recently wrapped its first season on STARZ and has been greenlit for a second. It appears that plans to adapt his Vertigo comic book series ‘Sandman’ as a feature film have been scrapped, as Gaiman is now hoping to develop it as a TV series instead.
‘Good Omens’ is coming to Amazon in 2018.
What do you think of Hamm’s addition to this miniseries? Will his star power help bolster this surreal story?