Colin Farrell is to play Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North in a new Amazon Prime series about the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.
The then Deputy Director of Political Military Affairs for the US National Security Council, North was fired from the Regan administration after it emerged that money meant to secure the release of seven American hostages held in the Lebanon by Hezbollah was clandestinely diverted to Contra rebels fighting the democratically elected Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
The series reunites Farrell with Yorgos Lanthimos, director of The Lobster and the upcoming The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, which finds Farrell sharing top billing with Nicole Barry Keoghan, Nicole Kidman and Alicia Silverstone. Executive Producer duties fall to Ben Stiller and Nicky Weinstock.
“I’m really excited to be working with Colin again on something quite different to what we have done so far,” Lanthimos tells Variety magazine. “I look forward to joining forces with Ben and Nicky, who had an excellent casting idea and saw the potential of the material early on and Amazon, who has embraced the project with great enthusiasm. It makes me very confident and excited to be working on a script which, although based on relatively recent history, feels very fresh and relevant to our times.”
Farrell’s acting stock has never been higher with an upcoming role alongside the aforementioned Ms. Kidman, Kristen Dunst and Elle Fanning in Sofia Coppola’s remake of Clint Eastwood classic The Beguiled, and talk of him joining Denzel Washington in Dan Gilroy’s legal drama, Inner City.