Paramount+ has announced a major coup for behind and in front of the camera on brand new original series Lioness. The streamer has confirmed that Academy and Emmy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman will both star and executive produce the series through her Blossom Films company.
Headlines by Zoe Saldaña and Laysla De Oliveira, Lioness is based on a real-life CIA program and follows Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a rough-around-the-edges but passionate young Marine recruited to join the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team to help bring down a terrorist organisation from within. Saldaña will play Joe, the station chief of the Lioness program tasked with training, managing and leading her female undercover operatives.
Kidman will play Kaitlyn Meade, the CIA’s Senior Supervisor who has had a long career of playing the politics game. She must juggle the trappings of being a woman in the high-ranking intelligence community, a wife that longs for the attention she herself can’t even give and a mentor to someone veering suspiciously close to the same rocky road she’s found herself on.
Academy Award®, Golden Globe®, SAG Award®, and Emmy® Award winner Nicole Kidman is best known for her critically acclaimed film work, including The Hours, which garnered her an Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for her portrayal as Virginia Woolf. She also received Academy Award nominations for her work in Being the Ricardos, Moulin Rouge!, Rabbit Hole’‘ and Lion.
In television, Kidman received Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild Awards for her portrayal of Celeste in Big Little Lies. She also starred in and received several nominations for her roles in Hemingway and Gellhorn and The Undoing. Kidman also starred in Nine Perfect Strangers, and Roar, on which she also served as co-executive producer.
Kidman most recently appeared in Robert Eggers’ film The Northman, and wrapped production on an untitled romantic comedy, co- starring Joey King and Zac Efron. Kidman will also star in the upcoming drama series Expats.
The series will also star series regulars Jill Wagner as Bobby, a CIA Special Activities Division operative; Dave Annable as Neil, Joe’s husband and the father of their two daughters; LaMonica Garrett and James Jordan star as Tucker and Two Cups, respectively, both experienced CIA Special Activities Division operatives on Joe’s team; Austin Hébert as Randy, a tech specialist in charge of surveillance; Hannah Love Lanier as Kate, Joe and Neil’s daughter; Stephanie Nur as Aaliyah, the daughter of a billionaire businessman with ties to terrorism; and Jonah Wharton will play Tex, another member of Joe’s team.
Lioness is executive produced by Taylor Sheridan, David C. Glasser, Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, David Hutkin, Jill Wagner, Geyer Kosinski, Michael Malone and John Hillcoat.
