We’re huge fans of Elisabeth Moss, and the year is barely half over, and we’ve already been basking in her absolutely stunning work in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” were again impressed with her small turn in Ruben Östlund‘s “The Square,” and are keeping our fingers crossed for “Top Of The Lake: China Girl“ to live up to its potential. And in Moss’ ongoing bid to keep winning our hearts, she’s signed up for yet another promising small-screen project.
READ MORE: Ruben Östlund’s Smart, Sharp, Deliciously Uncomfortable ‘The Square’ [Cannes Review]
The actress will star in and produce “Fever” for BBC America and Annapurna Television. Based on the novel by Mary Beth Keane, the series will tell the story of the infamous Typhoid Mary, who was identified as the carrier of the disease that spread across New York City. Here’s the book synopsis:
On the eve of the twentieth century, Mary Mallon emigrated from Ireland at age fifteen to make her way in New York City. Brave, headstrong, and dreaming of being a cook, she fought to climb up from the lowest rung of the domestic-service ladder. Canny and enterprising, she worked her way to the kitchen, and discovered in herself the true talent of a chef. Sought after by New York aristocracy, and with an independence rare for a woman of the time, she seemed to have achieved the life she’d aimed for when she arrived in Castle Garden. Then one determined “medical engineer” noticed that she left a trail of disease wherever she cooked, and identified her as an “asymptomatic carrier” of Typhoid Fever. With this seemingly preposterous theory, he made Mallon a hunted woman.
The Department of Health sent Mallon to North Brother Island, where she was kept in isolation from 1907 to 1910, then released under the condition that she never work as a cook again. Yet for Mary — proud of her former status and passionate about cooking — the alternatives were abhorrent. She defied the edict.
Bringing early-twentieth-century New York alive — the neighborhoods, the bars, the park carved out of upper Manhattan, the boat traffic, the mansions and sweatshops and emerging skyscrapers — Fever is an ambitious retelling of a forgotten life. In the imagination of Mary Beth Keane, Mary Mallon becomes a fiercely compelling, dramatic, vexing, sympathetic, uncompromising, and unforgettable heroine.
It’s a helluva tale, and fans of Steven Soderbergh‘s “The Knick” will remember that that show touched briefly upon the scandal in the first season, with Melissa McMeekin playing Mary Mallon. Robin Veith (“The Expanse,” “True Blood“) will write the project, and Phil Morrison (“Enlightened,” “Junebug“) will direct the limited-series effort. Is it too early to put this on our Most Anticipated TV Of 2018? [Deadline]