Back in September, we reported on Anthony Hopkins getting approached to star as an ailing patriarch in Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of The Corrections for US cable network HBO. But while Hopkins has passed on the project, it has still scored some prime British acting talent, with Ewan McGregor signing on to play a key role in the drama.
Though the project – which Baumbach is scripting with novelist Jonathan Franzen – is still only at the pilot stage, it has already attracted Chris Cooper (to play the father figure Hopkins was approached for) and Diane Wiest as his wife.
The Corrections finds the parents gathering together their dysfunctional family (including middle child Chip, played by McGregor) for a final Christmas as the head of the household reveals that his brain is beginning to fail him. You might think that would lead to a short series, but since the book is a sprawling story of the family’s ups and downs across three decades, there’s plenty of source material.
It’ll mark the first time McGregor has had a regular role on a TV show (we’re not counting The Long Way Round or Down or his miniseries work on the likes of The Scarlet And The Black or Lipstick On Your Collar here). Last seen in Beginners and Perfect Sense, he’ll next be seen facing off against MMA fighter Gina Carano in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire on January 20.