LOS ANGELES, Oct 26 — HBO, the BBC and French channel Canal+ have teamed up to distribute Years & Years, a limited series about a famous celebrity who becomes a powerful politician.
Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for her performance in 1995’s Jane Austen adaptation Sense & Sensibility, is to play a leading role in a British family drama that takes place against a political backdrop.
The actress is to play Vivienne Rook, a celebrity and politician known for her controversial opinions.
Described as entertainer, rebel, and trickster as well as a divisive political figure, Rook appears to be in power for at least some of the time the 2019 series takes place.
It follows the fortunes of the Lyon family over a 15-year period as they deal with political, technological and economic uncertainties visited upon them and the nation as a whole.
Family members include financial advisor Stephen (Rory Kinnear, Skyfall) and his driven accountant wife Celeste (T’Nia Miller, BBC comedy thriller Witless), Stephen’s brother Daniel, a housing officer (Russell Tovey, Quantico), crafty sister Edith (Jessica Hynes, Bridget Jones’s Baby), pregnant Rosie (Ruth Madeley, Cold Feet,) and matriarch Muriel (Anne Reid, Bleak House).
The state of the nation drama was written by Russell T. Davies of Doctor Who and A Very English Scandal.
Emma Thompson won her two Golden Globes and Oscar awards for Howards End and Sense and Sensibility in the early to mid-1990s.
More recently she has featured in Bridget Jones’s Baby, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast remake, The Meyerowitz Stories, and Johnny English Strikes Again.
Upcoming projects include 2019’s Men in Black movie, 2020’s The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, and coming-of-age reinvention movie How to Build a Girl. — AFP-Relaxnews
