Timothy Hutton to Star in John Ridley’s ABC Drama (Exclusive)

Days after taking home the best picture and adapted screenplay Oscars for 12 Years a Slave, John Ridley has cast the lead in his ABC drama pilot, American Crime.

Leverage alum Timothy Hutton will topline American Crime, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

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The drama pilot, written, exec produced and directed by Ridley, examines the personal lives of the players involved in a racially charged trial as their worlds are turned upside down.

Hutton will play an honest but average guy working at a big-box retailer in Arizona who has made great pains to reconnect with his now adult sons, Matt and Mark, and speaks with the latter — a war veteran — every week. He’s destroyed when he learns that Matt and his wife, Lily, have been murdered in their home in Modesto, Calif., and he flies there immediately.

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Hutton is currently filming TNT’s Public Morals and stars opposite Chloe Sevigny in the upcoming feature #horror. He’s repped by WME, Untitled and Jackoway Tyreman. TNT canceled Leverage in 2012 after five seasons. Hutton took home a supporting actor Oscar statuette for his turn in 1980’s Ordinary People.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
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