Colin Firth has taken a role in Apple TV’s upcoming series based on the late Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir novels, Deadline reports.
Kerr’s series of historical crime novels follows Bernie Gunther, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking private investigator in early 20th-century Germany. The series kicked off in 1989 with March Violets; 13 more novels followed, including The Pale Criminal, A Quiet Flame, Prague Fatale, The Lady From Zagreb, and Greeks Bearing Gifts.
In a 2011 interview with Kirkus, Kerr discussed the character of Bernie, saying, “The point of the character is that he is an Everyman figure designed to highlight the moral dilemmas that might have confronted any one of us in the situation he finds himself in, which is of his country run by a bunch of racist gangsters. That’s the question I am always asking myself in these books. What would I have done?”
The show will begin with an adaptation of Metropolis, the final book in Kerr’s series, which tells Bernie’s origin story as a police detective in 1928 Berlin. Bernie will be played by Jack Lowden, known for his roles in the series Slow Horses and the films Dunkirk and Mary Queen of Scots.
Firth (Shakespeare in Love, The King’s Speech) will play Paul Lohser, a fellow murder detective, in the as-yet untitled series. The series will be written by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Conclave) and directed by Tom Shankland (The Killing Gene, The Children). Executive producers include Straughan, Shankland, and Tom Hanks. Novelist Jane Thynne, Kerr’s widow, will serve as a consulting producer.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
