Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o will topline a limited series at Apple TV+.
The two will play leads in Lady in the Lake, based on the best-selling novel of the same title by Laura Lippman. Apple has given a straight to series order to the project, which marks Portman’s first regular TV role. It’s also the first American series for Nyong’o, who had been attached to Americanah at HBO Max before the project was scrapped due to a scheduling conflict.
Lady in the Lake is set in Baltimore in the 1960s, where an unsolved murder pushes housewife and mother Maddie Schwartz (Portman) to reinvent herself as an investigative reporter. Her new calling puts her on a collision course with Cleo Sherwood (Nyong’o), who juggles motherhood, several jobs and a commitment to the city’s Black progressive agenda.
Endeavor Content is producing the series along with Crazyrose and Bad Wolf America. Alma Har’el (Honey Boy) is writing the first episode and will co-write the remaining episodes with Dre Ryan (The Man in the High Castle, Colony). Har’el is also set to direct.
The two stars executive produce with Ryan; Har’el and producing partner Christopher Leggett via their Zusa banner; Portman’s producing partner Sophie Mas; Crazyrose’s Jean-Marc Vallée and Nathan Ross; Bad Wolf America’s Julie Gardner; and author Lippman.
Portman is repped by CAA and the Law Offices of George Sheanshang; Nyong’o by CAA, Mainstay Entertainment and Del Shaw; Har’el by WME, Range Media Partners and Gang Tyre; Ryan by WME and Gang Tyre; and Lippman by Vicky Bijur Literary Agency and Jackoway Tyerman. Bad Wolf America and Crazyrose are both repped by WME; Crazyrose, Vallée and Ross are also repped by Sloane Offer.
