Award-winning American actor Jon Hamm (Mad Men, Baby Driver, Bridesmaids) will be joining the cast of Good Omens, the forthcoming series for Amazon and BBC Two in the role of the archangel Gabriel – the primary messenger of God. The 6-part television adaptation by BBC Studios of the best-selling novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is currently in production and will be released on Amazon Prime Video globally in 2019 followed by a run on BBC Two in the UK.
The character of Gabriel has a fleeting role in the original novel but showrunner Neil Gaiman explains why he is being developed for the screenplay:
“Once we had finished writing Good Omens, back in the dawn of prehistory, Terry Pratchett and I started plotting a sequel. There would have been a lot of angels in the sequel. When Good Omens was first published and was snapped up for the first time by Hollywood, Terry and I took joy in introducing our angels into the plot of a movie that was never made. So when, almost thirty years later, I started writing Good Omens for TV, one thing I knew was that our angels would have to be in there.
The leader of these angels is Gabriel. He is everything that Aziraphale isn’t: he’s tall, good-looking, charismatic and impeccably dressed. We were fortunate that Jon Hamm was available, given that he is already all of these things without even having to act. We were even more fortunate that he’s a fan of the books and a remarkable actor.”
Commenting on his casting, Jon Hamm adds: “I read Good Omens almost twenty years ago. I thought it was one of the funniest, coolest books I’d ever read. It was also, obviously, unfilmable. Two months ago Neil sent me the scripts, and I knew I had to be in it.”
Good Omens was commissioned for Amazon Prime Video and for BBC Two by Patrick Holland, Controller, BBC Two; Shane Allen, Controller, BBC Comedy Commissioning and BBC commissioning editor Gregor Sharp. It is being produced by the comedy team at BBC Studios, the BBC’s commercial production arm, Narrativia and The Blank Corporation, in association with BBC Worldwide.
Good Omens will launch globally on Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories in 2019 including in the UK, where it will also air on BBC Two at a later date. BBC Worldwide distributes rights for Good Omens internationally, after the series premiere on Prime Video. The series will be brought to the screen by the highly acclaimed director/executive producer Douglas Mackinnon, whose credits include Knightfall, Dirk Gently, Doctor Who, Outlander and the standalone Victorian episode of Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, winner of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie last year.
