Jodie Turner-Smith Joins Showtime's 'The Agency'

Showtime's new series, The Agency, a remake of the French spy series Le Bureau des Legendes (shortened to The Bureau for the American market), is full speed ahead in casting as filming prepares to get underway. The series, which was initially announced in early 2023, disappeared from the radar for a while as Paramount Global found itself collapsing into debt, and owner Shari Redstone looked for a buyer. However, with the sale of the company to Skydance now in the works, it's back to business as usual at Showtime (which streams on Paramount+), as it preps what producers will be its next British-ish hit.

First, the production confirmed that it had signed Michael Fassbender (Kneecap) to anchor the series as Martian, the Anglicized version of The Bureau's main character, Guillaume Debailly, played by Mathieu Kassovitz (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) in the original. Now the series has cast its leading lady with Jodie Turner-Smith (Anne Boleyn) as Sami Zahir, the show's version of Nadia El Mansour (played by Zineb Triki), a Syrian professor of history whose relationship with Martian is key to the show's first season.

Fassbender and Turner-Smith are the show's leading Brits, but they aren't the only ones cast so far. The series also has a pair of American actors who will also be toplining the series: Richard Gere (Pretty Woman) and Jeffery Wright (American Fiction). Gere plays Bosko, the big boss, who in the original is named Colonel Marc Lauré. Wright plays Henry (in the original, Henri Duflot), the head of the Agency and Martian's mentor.

The show's synopsis is as follows:

Based on The Bureau, which focused on the division of France’s external security service responsible for training and handling deep-cover agents over the course of long-term missions, The Agency focuses on a CIA agent who’s ordered to abandon his undercover life and return to London Station. When the love he left behind reappears, romance reignites. His career, real identity, and mission are pitted against his heart, hurling them into a deadly game of international intrigue and espionage.

The Agency's ten-episode seasons were written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth; director Joe Wright leads helming duties. The Butterworths, Wright, and Fassbender are executive producers along with George Clooney and Grant Heslov via their Smokehouse Pictures; Keith Cox and Nina L. Diaz of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios; David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle, David Hutkin and Bob Yari of 101 Studios; Alex Berger for TOP-The Originals Productions; and Ashley Stern and Pascal Breton for Federation Studios/Federation Entertainment of America.

Paramount+ lists The Agency as part of Showtime's 2024 debut schedule, but viewers probably won't see it until close to the end of the year, if not 2025.