Netflix is filling out the cast of the conspiracy thriller limited series Zero Day. Previously, it was announced that the series would star Hollywood legend Robert De Niro in a lead role. It is being promoted by the streamer as the first starring role in a TV series for the veteran actor. It was also noted that the six-episode limited series will be directed by Lesli Linka Glatter. It is created by Eric Newman and Noah Oppenheim.
Now, Netflix has announced additional cast members for the series. Coming into the show will be Lizzy Caplan (Fleishman Is in Trouble, Fatal Attraction), Jesse Plemons (El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Power of the Dog), Joan Allen (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Contender), and Connie Britton (White Lotus, Friday Night Lights). Along with De Niro, they wlill serve as the principal performers in the series.
Character details have also been revealed. To start with, De Niro is playing George Mullen, a "massively popular, but complicated, former American President who is pulled from retirement to head a commission tasked with investigating a devastating global cyber-attack."
The other characters include Caplan as Alexandra Mullen, the daughter of De Niro's character and a young Congresswoman who has "sought to distance herself form her father's political legacy"; Plemons as Roger Carlson, a former Mullen "body man" now seeking a "return to the national stage" with Mullen; Allen as Sheila Mullen, the former First Lady and "nominee to the federal bench whose professional ambitions take a backseat to her husband’s political career"; and Britton as Valerie Whitesell, a "savvy, intelligent political operative who was Mullen’s former Chief of Staff."
Robert De Niro Hits the Small Screen
Robert De Niro is also executive producing the series with creators Eric Newman and Noah Oppenheim. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael S. Schmidt is also executive producing, as is Jonathan Glickman for Panoramic Media and Lesli Linka Glatter (Homeland, Mad Men, Love and Death), with the latter also serving as the director of all six episodes.
The official synopsis for the limited series is as follows:
Zero Day asks the question on everyone’s mind -- how do we find truth in a world in crisis, one seemingly being torn apart by forces outside our control? And in an era rife with conspiracy theory and subterfuge, how much of those forces are products of our own doing, perhaps even of our own imagining?
Zero Day doesn't yet have a release date set at Netflix.