Michael Fassbender will star in an upcoming Netflix series inspired by Fredrik Logevall’s JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, the streaming service announced.
Logevall’s book, published in 2020 by Random House, is a biography of President John F. Kennedy, covering his life up through 1956, the year he published his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Profiles in Courage. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called JFK, the first of two planned volumes, “highly revealing, particularly for post-Camelot readers who wonder at the esteem in which JFK is held.”
Fassbender, known for his work in films including Hunger, 12 Years a Slave, and Steve Jobs, will play Joe Kennedy Sr., John F. Kennedy’s father, in the series, titled Kennedy. Joshuah Melnick (Saint X) will play John F. Kennedy, while Laura Donnelly (Outlander) will star as Rose Kennedy and Nick Robinson (Love, Simon) as Joe Kennedy Jr. Recurring actors include Ben Miles (The Crown), Lydia Peckham (Nuremberg), Saura Lightfoot-Leon (Masters of the Air), Cole Doman (The Mastermind), and Imogen Poots (The Father).
Sam Shaw (Castle Rock) will serve as an executive producer and the series’ showrunner, and Logevall will be among the executive producers.
“The story of the Kennedys is the closest we have to American mythology—somewhere between Shakespeare and The Bold and the Beautiful,” Shaw said. “But Fredrik Logevall’s stunning, nuanced biography pulls a veil on the human strivings and burdens behind the myth, revealing as much about our present moment, how we got here and where we’re going, as about the Kennedys themselves.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
