'A Gentleman In Moscow' Rounds Out Cast With Familiar Faces

There's a joke among those who love British television that there are only a dozen actors in the U.K., and the BBC employs all of them all the time in every show. That's not quite true, but when you have a high-profile series that's going to be a topline title for a streaming service determined to make a splash in the British TV space with a well-known title and an A-list director, the usual suspects will round themselves up and get in line to nab a role. Ben Vanstone's A Gentleman in Moscow for Paramount+/Showtime already recruited Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead for the leading roles. Now the rest of the cast has filled out with other popular actors.

Based on the 2016 novel by Amor Towles of the same name, the story revolves around the fictional Count Rostov, orphaned at a young age and sent out of the country to Paris as a teenager. He returns in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution, only to be arrested and put on trial as a social parasite. However, his eloquent refusal to confess leads to him not being lined up against the wall and shot. Instead, he's placed under house arrest for life at the Hotel Metropol in central Moscow, where he eventually becomes a surrogate father to another child orphaned by circumstances.

McGregor plays the Count, with Winstead as another hotel resident, a self-made film actress, Anna Urbanova. The cast joining them for the project include John Heffernan (Becoming Elizabeth), Leah Harvey (Les Miserables), Johnny Harris (Great Expectations), Fehinti Balogun (I May Destroy You), Paul Ready (Bodyguard), Anastasia Hille (Baptiste), Lyès Salem (Munich), Björn Hlynur Haraldsson (The Witcher), Dee Ahluwalia (Sex Education), and Alexa Goodall (The Devil's Hour).