Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) will star in her own show at Apple TV. The show is titled The Savant and will be an eight episode limited series based on a previously published story by Cosmopolitan, via The Hollywood Reporter.
The Cosmopolitan article was originally published by writer Andrea Stanley, who will serve as a consultant on the limited series. The story was written in August of 2019 under the headline “Is it Possible to Stop Mass Shooting Before It Happens?“. In the original article, it introduces audiences to an anonymous woman known as “The Savant”. The woman is an investigator whose job is to go undercover into online hate groups to take down the most violent men in the country before they can put their large scale attack plans into action. More details on this new project have not yet been announced.
For Chastain, The Savant marks her latest television project. She most recently starred in Showtime’s George & Tammy, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as well as a SAG Award for her performance as Tammy Wynette. Her TV credits also include HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage in which she starred opposite of Oscar Issac (Moon Knight, Dune). She’s repped by CAA and Mosaic.
Melissa James Gibson (Anatomy of a Scandal, The Americans) is attached to the project and will serve as showrunner on the series, which is a co-production between the production companies Fifth Season (formerly known as Endeavor Content) and Anonymous Content. Also, Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land) will direct and serve as an executive producer alongside Gibson and Chastain. The deal continues Apple’s relationship with Anonymous Content following previous collaborations including Dickinson and The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Other exec producers include Freckle Films’ Kelly Carmichael (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Cosmopolitan magazine Editor-in-Chief Jessica Giles. Brian Madden, who serves as Senior VP of development for Hearst Magazines, will produce.