Actor Daniel Craig – most known for portraying James Bond in the last four of the franchise’s movies – will reportedly star in a limited television series based on Jonathan Franzen’s novel “Purity.” Showtime, Netflix, FX and other major networks are currently bidding on the rights to air the series, according to Variety.
“‘Purity’ is a grand story of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity and murder,” according to the book’s publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, which released Franzen’s tome last August. It tells the tale of a young girl named Pip Tyler, aka Purity, who doesn’t really know who she is, as she interns in South America with an organization led by a German peace activist “that traffics in all the secrets of the world – including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins.”
It is unknown which role Craig would take on in the drama, but many insiders said it would be that of the German activist, Andreas Wolf. No other casting news has been announced.
The series will be produced by Scott Rudin and written by Franzen and Todd Field (who will also direct all 20 episodes), reported Deadline.
Rudin and Franzen previously worked together to bring the author’s 2001 award-winning novel “The Corrections” to HBO. However, the Rudin-produced project did not receive a series order after a pilot was shot in 2012, reported Variety.
Last fall, Craig said he was done playing 007 and his foray into television may prove that. “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists,” he said after being asked if he would do another Bond film, HNGN previously reported. “I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.”
This would be the 47-year-old actor’s first U.S. TV series. He did work in the medium in the 1990s in his native England.
