Yael Stone has joined the cast of Childhood’s End, the sci-fi miniseries that starts shooting in Melbourne next month.
The Orange is the New Black regular will play a character named Peretta in the show based on the Arthur C. Clarke novel, commissioned by the US Syfy Channel.
Clarke’s novel is set on Earth while it is under the benign control of a race of aliens, the Overlords. From their hovering UFOs, the Overlords spend decades turning Earth into a Utopia, which in the process also destroys humanity's identity.
Charles Dance, who plays Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones and starred in Mark Hartley’s Patrick, is cast as an Overlord named Karellen, an ambassador for his species on Earth.
Ashley Zukerman (The Code) will play Jake Greggson, an American production designer with artistic sensibilities whose children begin to exhibit psychic powers.
Jacob Holt (Winners & Losers, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart) is the young Jake. Other Aussies in the cast include Hayley Magnus, who is currently working with Kate Winslet, Judy Davis and Liam Hemsworth in Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker; Charlotte Nicdao (Please Like Me, The Time of Our Lives); and stage actress Zahra Newman.
Matthew Graham, creator of BBC's Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, is adapting Clarke’s novel and the director is Brit Nick Hurran, whose credits include Doctor Who and Sherlock.
HayPop Pty Ltd’s Jeff Hayes and Brett Popplewell are producing the six-part series for Universal Cable Productions.