EXCLUSIVE: Lesley-Ann Brandt (Lucifer, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live) has been cast as a series regular on Apple’s Presumed Innocent for its upcoming second season. Brandt joins the previously announced cast led by Rachel Brosnahan, along with Matthew Rhys, Courtney B. Vance, Fiona Shaw, Jack Reynor, John Magaro, and Michael Hsu Rosen.
The series is created by David E. Kelley, who also serves as co-showrunner and executive producer. As he reimagined, Presumed Innocent explores obsession, sex, politics, and the power and limits of love, as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.
Dissection of a Murder, the debut legal thriller novel by Jo Murray, inspires the second season of Presumed Innocent. Details around the plot are being kept under wraps.
Led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Season 1 was inspired by Scott Turow’s courtroom thriller of the same name. It tells the story of a horrific murder that upends the Chicago Prosecuting Attorneys’ office when one of its own is suspected of the crime. The book was published in 1987 and was turned into a 1990 feature starring Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the same role Gyllenhaal took on.
The title comes from Bad Robot Productions and David E. Kelley Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. Kelley serves as showrunner on Season 2 alongside Erica Lipez. Abrams and Rachel Rusch Rich executive produce for Bad Robot. Kelley executive produces through David E. Kelley Productions alongside Matthew Tinker and Lipez. Dustin Thomason also executive produces.
In addition to starring, Brosnahan executive produces. Gyllenhaal executive produces under his Nine Stories banner. Scott Turow, author of “Presumed Innocent,” co-executive produces.
Brandt is best known for playing Mazikeen in the Netflix hit series Lucifer across the show’s six seasons, and Naevia in the Starz gladiator drama Spartacus. Most recently, she served as a producer on South Africa’s International Feature Oscar submission, The Heart is a Muscle, which won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. She is also producing the recently announced feature Bender, starring Bill Burr, via her production company, D6, which she co-owns with Adrian Cunningham, who penned the script. Brand is repped by Luber Roklin, CAA and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.