Charlie Hunnam was just spotted at this year’s Primetime Emmys following his transformative work in Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
And looking ahead, the Sons of Anarchy star remains hard at work, with an upcoming series in the works based on the work of John le Carré. The late, great English writer’s bestselling espionage novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was published in 1963, and the new small-screen adaptation is titled Legacy of Spies.
The BBC and MGM+ released a first glimpse of the show on Monday, September 28 to mark the end of filming. Check out the stills of its stars, Hunnam and Succession Emmy-winner Matthew Macfadyen, below.
The series’ title actually derives from le Carré’s 2017 novel A Legacy of Spies give that it draws on additional material from this publication, per Monday’s news release.
The eight-part drama marks spymaster George Smiley’s return to television with Macfadyen, 51, in the iconic role, alongside Hunnam as the embattled, world-weary agent-runner and field operative, Alec Leamas.
Here’s the official synopsis: “When Alec Leamas, a highly experienced Circus field operative, recruits Doris Quinz (Devrim Lingau Islamoğlu), a young and dynamic East German woman, to smuggle high-value Stasi documents into the West, it sets in motion a series of events that threaten to explode in the crucible of Cold War Berlin. Pursuing Leamas and Doris are Josef Fiedler (Daniel Brühl) and Hans-Dieter Mundt (Felix Kammerer), two Stasi operatives whose ferocious desire to shut down the intelligence leak is matched only by their internal rivalry and an iron will to outmatch each other…”
The synopsis continues, “Pulled into the action is Liz Gold (Agnes O’Casey), an idealistic young woman whose courage and conviction force Leamas to navigate a world where loyalties fracture and betrayal is inevitable. Behind the scenes, the brilliant and taciturn spymaster George Smiley orchestrates operations while the elusive Soviet mastermind Karla looms in the shadows, setting the stage for a conflict that will define a generation.”
