Apple TV+ Taps Hugh Bonneville to Narrate Next Nature Doc

Apple TV+ and the BBC Natural History Unit have teamed up again for the latest nature documentary from the storied production team. This is the third time the two have done so in as many years, having previously worked together on Prehistoric Planet and The Year Earth Changed. They're a natural fit: Apple TV+ with scads of money, the BBC Natural History Unit with the most up-to-date equipment and filming techniques bringing nature ever closer to viewers on their TV screens. The latest, The Secret Lives of Animals, arrives just before the December holidays, with PBS favorite Hugh Bonneville narrating.

In less than 18 months, Sir David Attenborough will ring in his 100th birthday, but you wouldn't know it from the multiple nature series he narrates year in and year out. Attenborough's sonorous voice and upper-class precise pronunciation have graced so many BBC documentary nature specials that it's now the default voice people expect when tuning in to BBC Natural History programming. But with triple digits looming, Attenborough's time in the narrator's chair is growing short. That's why it's not surprising a silent derby of sorts has begun, with various stentorian-voiced British actors trying their best to nail it.

Looking back over the past few years, one can see the attempts at auditioning various replacements. Benedict Cumberbatch narrated 2021's Antarctica: Into The Unknown and 2023's Arctic: Our Frozen Planet on the BBC; Patrick Stewart recently did Secrets of the Neanderthals over on Netflix; Tom Hiddleston narrated Big Beasts and Earthsounds for Apple TV+; David Tennant does all those Spy In The Wild series. Bonneville is now the latest to join the group, as he lends his dulcet tones of The Secret Lives of Animals. 

Check out the trailer. 

Here's the synopsis:

The Secret Lives of Animals utilizes cutting-edge technology to showcase new and remarkable animal behaviors, capturing the sounds and vibrations of a unique jumping spider courtship dance, a killifish in Trinidad breathing through its tail when out of the water, and a wood mouse marking its territory with signposts all for the first time. Witness a rarely seen relationship between a frog and tarantula, a land lizard that can breathe underwater, and a monkey that uses a bizarre nose-poking ritual as a test of friendship. Each episode focuses on specific behaviors that are pivotal in the life cycles of various animals — from birth and leaving home to raising a family and from finding food to growing old — highlighting their striking intelligence and adaptability.

Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey) narrates the series. Matt Brandon (Planet Earth III) served as showrunner, and Roger Webb (Mammals) as executive producer for BBC Studios Natural History Unit. The series marks the third collaboration between the BBC Studios Natural History Unit and Apple TV+.

The Secret Lives of Animals will debut with all ten episodes on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, on Apple TV+.