LEGION Gets a Leading Lady
[photo: FX]
The new Marvel television series set to air on FX now has a lead actress: Rachel Keller (Fargo) will play a character described as “a scrappy and optimistic woman in her 20s,” although no name is attached to the description yet.
This reunited Keller with Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, who’s taking on that role for this new show. Keller’s performance in her first leading role – that of femme fatale Simone Gerhardt – was impressive enough for Hawley and FX to give her a lead role so early in her career (she’s 23). Her turn on Fargo has been a breakout performance, and she’s a fan favorite.
In the same week the casting news hit the web, we also learned that Keller had signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavour, one of the more prominent high-profile agencies in Hollywood. Success has come quickly for the 2014 Carnegie Mellon graduate.
Legion is set in the X-Men universe under the control of 20th Century Fox, and is one of two mutant-related series currently in development. The story follows David Haller, a young man who has been struggling with mental illness since he was a teenager. With a diagnosis of schizophrenia, Haller spends a lot of time in and out of psychiatric hospitals.
Inside one of these facilities, Haller has a chance encounter with a fellow patient that forces him to face the possibility that the “voices in his head” are actually real, and the visions he has may have deeper implications.
The David Haller character first appeared in New Mutants #35 (March 1985), the son of X-Men founder Charles Xavier (currently played by James MacAvoy in the movie continuity, the older version having been played by Sir Patrick Stewart) and Israeli Holocaust survivor Gabrielle Haller.
While the other series, Hellfire, is set in the 1960s, we’ve yet to learn the setting for this show. Given how much time has passed since World War II, Hawley will either have to make it a period piece as well or alter Gabrielle’s history somehow.
FX Productions will produce for Marvel Television.
