Elisabeth Moss has found her next small-screen role.
The Handmaid’s Tale actress is teaming with Annapurna Television and BBC America to develop a new miniseries, which she would star in and executive produce.
Based on Mary Beth Keane’s 1999 novel of the same name, Fever focuses on the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever who became known as “Typhoid Mary” as she spread typhoid across the burgeoning metropolis of early 20th century New York.
Moss acquired the rights to Keane’s book and sent the material to Phil Morrison (Enlightened), who has since signed on to direct and exec produce the drama. Robin Veith (The Expanse, True Blood) is attached to write the adaptation and will also serve as an exec producer. Moss, Morrison and Veith will exec produce alongside Annapurna’s Sue Naegle and Megan Ellison.
“I’m so honored to be working with the incredible team of collaborators we have pulled together with Phil, Robin, BBC America and Annapurna,” Moss said.
“I look forward to telling this story about one of the most infamous women in America, ‘Typhoid Mary,’ a woman whose true tale has never been told. She was an immigrant in turn of the century New York, a time of huge change and progress in America. She was incredibly unique, stubborn, ambitious and in fierce denial of any wrongdoing until her death where she lived out her days imprisoned on an island just off of the Bronx in New York. She is incredibly complicated, something I seem to enjoy playing.”
The project keeps Moss in the AMC Networks fold. In addition to her starring role on Mad Men, Moss most recently headlined the miniseries Top of the Lake, which aired stateside on SundanceTV in 2013 and netted Moss a Golden Globe. The upcoming second season is set to premiere on SundanceTV in September and will welcome Nicole Kidman and Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie.
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Moss also stars in and exec produces The Handmaid’s Tale, which was recently renewed for a second season at Hulu.
Moss is the latest high-profile talent to team with Annapurna’s burgeoning TV banner, which launched in late 2016 with former HBO president of entertainment Naegle. The company is also working with Julia Roberts on a limited series adaptation of the Maria Semple novel Today Will Be Different, in which Roberts will star. The Coen Brothers are also writing and directing a Western anthology for shingle, titled The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
For BBC America, Fever would join original dramas that includes the upcoming fifth and final season of Orphan Black, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and the forthcoming dark thriller Killing Eve from Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
