Stephen Graham joins Perfect Couple star in Lars Kepler adaptation – after Tom Hardy was in talks

It was previously announced back in 2023 that Tom Hardy would be taking on the role, which at the time, was said to be in the closing deal stage.

Now, two years on, things are officially a-go as filming is set to kick off on the series this summer in Pittsburgh.

Graham is far from the only starry name to be attached to the series, with the cast also being led by The Perfect Couple's Liev Schreiber and Atlanta's Zazie Beetz.

According to Deadline, the series will follow Schreiber as ex-soldier turned homicide detective Jonah Lynn. Having worked for years in Philadelphia, he makes the decision to move to a small town in Western Pennsylvania with his family, swapping the big city for a quieter life.

However, things take a turn for the worse as his family starts to come under attack from "diabolically cunning" serial killer Jurek Walter, who will be played by Graham.

With the threat of Jurek looming, Jonah has to protect everything close to him, but when there's a growing desperate search for Jurek’s last missing victim, Jonah decides to send his adopted daughter, FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Beetz), to go up against Jurek.

In its early development stages, the roles of Beetz's Bauer and Jurek were described as "Hannibal Lecter-Clarice Starling-type roles", so we can anticipate quite the tense showdown between these two characters.

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While nothing more has been teased about the characters or plot, Lars Kepler book fans will undoubtedly be familiar with Jurek and Bauer from the Joona Linna series of novels.

Lars Kepler is a pseudonym for crime novel writing partners Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril and on their official website Graham's Jurek is described as a "straightforward" killer.

Of course, the series will likely go in its own direction when it comes to the characterisation of Jurek, but he is said to be someone who "doesn’t sexualise violence and neither is he a sadist. To him, killing is straightforward and definite, like an unavoidable physical labour."

The yet-to-be-named TV series will see Rowan Joffe and John Hlavin serve as co-showrunners and will also executively produce alongside Tim Van Patten, who will direct the first two episodes.

As well as starring in the series, Beetz and Schreiber will also serve as executive producers.

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