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Filming of Netflix’s seven-part series based on John Steinbeck’s East of Eden novel has gotten underway in New Zealand. Florence Pugh, who is playing the leading role of Cathy Ames, will be joined in the cast by Joe Anders, Ciaran Hands, Tracy Letts, Martha Plimpton, and Joseph Zada. These actors will complement the previously announced roster that includes Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, and Hoon Lee.
Netflix won the rights to the story in 2022. An earlier film based on Steinbeck’s novel had been made in 1955 directed by Elie Kazan and starring James Dean. Kazan’s granddaughter, Zoe Kazan, is the co-showrunner along with Jeb Stuart. Executive producers of the upcoming series include Kazan, Pugh, and Stuart.
An epic saga of two American families, East of Eden tells the interwoven stories of the Trask and Hamilton clans who migrated to the Salinas Valley of California in the early twentieth century. The novel, however, traces their lineages back to New England in the Civil War era. Steinbeck regarded the novel as his greatest work, commenting that “It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years,” and “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tracy Letts will play Adam Trask, while Joe Anders and Joseph Zada will be portraying his sons. Ciaran Hinds will play the role of Samuel Hamilton, while Martha Plimpton will portray a brothel owner named Faye.
British-born, the 28-year-old Florence Pugh recently portrayed Paige, a professional wrestler, in the biographical sports film Fighting with My Family. She also appeared in Oppenheimer and in Dune: Part Two, and in the role of Amy March in Little Women, for which she garnered nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA award. She als
The first four episodes in the upcoming Netflix series will be directed by Garth Davis, while episodes five through seven will be directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, who will also serve as an executive producer.
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