Just last week we brought you the news that Nicole Kidman would executive produce and appear in upcoming Paramount+ original series Lioness. Now the series had added another legend and Academy Award winner to the cast.
The streamer has announced that Morgan Freeman will star alongside series lead and executive producer Zoe Saldaña, Academy Award winner and executive producer Nicole Kidman, and Laysla De Oliveira. Freeman will play Edwin Mullins, the United States Secretary of State. From Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan, Lioness is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios exclusively for Paramount+.
The series 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 organization from within. Saldaña will play Joe, the station chief of the Lioness program tasked with training, managing and leading her female undercover operatives.
Also starring in Lioness are Dave Annable, Jill Wagner, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton, Stephanie Nur and Hannah Love Lanier. The series 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.
Freeman ranks within the Top 10 worldwide top-grossing actors of all time, with his films having earned over $5 billion in cumulative ticket sales. In 2005 Freeman won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in Million Dollar Baby. Freeman also received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for Best Supporting Actor for Street Smart, in 1994 for Best Actor for The Shawshank Redemption, and in 2010 for Best Actor for Invictus. He also won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance in Driving Miss Daisy in 1990. Freeman has been honored with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, the Golden Globes Cecil B. DeMille Award and the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. Freeman also received the coveted Kennedy Center Honor for his distinguished acting, and was honored with the Hollywood Actor Award from the Hollywood Film Festival.
Lioness s the latest addition to Sheridan’s growing slate on Paramount+ which includes 1883, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King and 1923 as well as the upcoming series Bass Reeves and Land Man.