Casting was announced Sunday for Andrew Davies’ adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace Miniseries for BBC and The Weinstein Company.
Paul Dano, Lily James
War and Peace will star Paul Dano (12 Years a Slave, There Will Be Blood), Lily James (Cinderella, Downton Abbey), and James Norton (Happy Valley, Belle). Dano will star as Pierre Bezukhov, James as Natasha Rostova and Norton as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Stephen Rea, Ade Edmondson, Greta Sacacchi, Jack Lowden, Tom Burke and Aisling Loftus will also be joining the cast.
“I am very excited and privileges to be playing Natasha, in this co-production between BBC and The Weinstein Company, of Tolstoy’s classic War and Peace. It is amazing to be part of such a prestigious cast and to appear in such a beautiful and fish adaptation by Andrew Davies” said Lily James according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman and executive producer for The Weinstein Co., said: “I fell in love with Tolstoy’s War and Peace as a teenager when I read it for the first time. Putting an epic, iconic story like War and Peace on screen with a cast of this caliber is an incredible thrill. Lily, Paul, and James are all amazingly talented actors, and it takes their level of talent to capture the scale of Tolstoy’s words. We are excited to get underway with Andrew Davies and the phenomenal team at BBC.”
The miniseries will consist of six one-hour episodes and will be directed by Tom Harper (Peaky Blinders). Filming will begin in January in Russia, Lithuania and Latvia.