Local actor Jay Ryan – best known for Terra Nova and Offspring – may have cracked the tough North American market after being cast as “The Beast” in US TV drama pilot Beauty and the Beast.
Ryan, who last year played Curran – a murderous security guard on the recently-cancelled dinosaur series Terra Nova, will play “beast” Vincent Koslow in a reboot of the 1980s CBS drama which starred Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman.
He will star opposite ‘beauty’ Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), while other cast members include Austin Basis (Life Unexpected), Nicole Gale Anderson (Jonas) and Nina Lisandrello (Pre). The CW drama series is being described as a modern-day romantic love story with a procedural twist.
It reportedly centres on Catherine (Kreuk), a tough-minded NYPD homicide detective, haunted after witnessing her mother’s murder nine years ago and the killers’ quick demise at the hands of a beast. After years of searching, Catherine finally finds the beast, Vincent Koslow (Ryan), the survivor of a military experiment that went disastrously wrong, and becomes the protector of his secret life as a superhero.
This will be Ryan’s US debut. Born in New Zealand, he is also known for playing Fraser King on popular Channel Ten series Offspring. Other credits include feature film Lou, and TV series Sea Patrol (William ‘Spider’ Webb) and Neighbours (Jack Scully).