Amazon has finally cast the second half of Carnival Row’s leading couple, announcing that the role will be filled by rising star Cara Delevingne (Suicide Squad, Paper Towns). Aside from being an Amazon original series, the reason Carnival Row had previously attracted attention was its casting of Orlando Bloom, who marks yet another silver screen actor making their transition to television. The straight-to-series fantasy drama is the product of Legendary Television, with Rene Echevarria, Travis Beacham, and Paul McGuigan.
Amazon describes Carnival Row as being set in a modernized, steampunk-esque Victorian city, with its genre classification being something along the lines of a “noir-fantasy.” War has ravaged the world, and many different mythical creatures have found themselves as refugees in this strange city, where conflict begins to foment between the original cities and its new immigrant population.
Bloom plays an investigator, Rycroft Philostrate, who is attempting to solve the muder of a faerie showgirl from the titular Carnival Row. This murder is just one in a recent outbreak of deaths which threatens the fragile peace of the city. Delevingne, on the other hand, will play the also quirkily-named Vignette Stonemoss, a refugee who must contend with the prejudice of humans as well as circumstances which arise from her mysterious, secretive past.
Echevarria will serve as the showrunner and main writer, though Beacham is the author of the original feature script. McGuigan is currently set to direct all eight episodes of the series.
Neither Delevingne nor Bloom have ever starred in an original television series before, so this marks a significant departure for both actors. At the moment, Carnival Row is set to begin filming sometime this fall, with the producers predicting a release date sometime early in 2019.
What do you think of this news? Are you excited to see these stars join the growing league of A-list actors defecting to the TV screen?
