casting couch

Benjamin Walker to Lead HBO Cold War Pilot The Missionary

Actor Benjamin Walker attends the Opening Night Gala Presentation Of
Benjamin Walker: From vampire hunter to communist hunter Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Ben Walker, star of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Brodway’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, has been cast as the lead of HBO’s Cold War espionage pilot The Missionary. Aaron Paul was previously in talks for the part. Written by Charles Randolph (Love and Other Drugs), and produced by Stephen Levinson (Boardwalk Empire, Entourage) and the unlikely pair of Mark Wahlberg and Malcolm Gladwell, the series would focus on an American missionary living in sixties Berlin who becomes a CIA operative. This news comes on the heels of FX ordering thirteen episodes of their Keri Russell–starring, Russian-spies-living-in–Cold War-era America series, The AmericansHopefully we’ll get some hot cross-network spy versus spy action.

Benjamin Walker to Lead HBO Cold War Pilot