Exciting news for “Boardwalk Empire” fans – Jeffrey Wright will join the show for its fourth season next year as a series regular. He’ll be playing “Valentin Narcisse, Doctor of Divinity, philanthropist, student of culture and the man who runs Harlem.” So he’s a character with a pretty impressive CV, and it’s some nice casting for a show that continues to cast respected character actors. Wright recently finished work on “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” where he played the notable character from the books, Beetee.
After making his directorial debut last year with the Eli Roth-produced “The Man With the Iron Fists,” it looks like Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA is ready to do some work on the small screen. His most notable television gig to date was a recurring role on “Californication,” but he’ll now join Ramon Rodriguez, Jay Hernandez and Sung Kang in Fox’s drama pilot, “Gang Related.” RZA will play the best friend and parent of Rodriguez’s lead undercover policeman. “Fast & Furious” writer Chris Morgan is penning the pilot.
And finally, it’s been a long time coming but Scoot McNairy is finally getting the big break he deserves, and that’s probably largely due to his scene-stealing turn in this year’s Best Picture winner, “Argo.” McNairy has bagged a lead role alongside the similarly deserving Lee Pace in AMC’s new drama pilot “Halt & Catch Fire.” Set in the early 1980s, the show will center around the personal computing boom in which Pace will play a technical visionary, and McNairy an engineer. It doesn’t sound like the natural successor to “Breaking Bad,” but AMC sure seems to have picked some great talent to lead the thing. [THR/Deadline]
