BBC, MGM+ reveal Matthew Macfadyen and Charlie Hunnam in espionage thriller Legacy of Spies

FIRST LOOK: Matthew Macfadyen and Charlie Hunnam are pictured for the first time in upcoming BBC and MGM+ drama Legacy of Spies, as filming wraps on the espionage thriller.

Macfadyen stars as George Smiley and Hunnam is Alec Leamas in the eight-part drama, which adapts John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold while also drawing on additional material from his 2017 novel A Legacy of Spies.

It marks Smiley’s long-awaited return to television and the first time he has led a TV drama series since Alec Guinness played the character in Smiley’s People.

The cast also includes Daniel Brühl, Devrim Lingnau Islamoğlu, Agnes O’Casey, Felix Kammerer, Dan Stevens, Jake Dunn, Anjana Vasan, Charlotte Ritchie, Joe Alwyn and Hugh Laurie.

When Alec Leamas, a highly experienced Circus field operative, recruits Doris Quinz (Islamoğlu), a young and dynamic East German woman, to smuggle high-value Stasi documents into the West, it sets in motion a series of events that threaten to explode in the crucible of Cold War Berlin.

Pursuing Leamas and Doris are Josef Fiedler (Brühl) and Hans-Dieter Mundt (Kammerer), two Stasi operatives whose ferocious desire to shut down the intelligence leak is matched only by their internal rivalry and an iron will to outmatch each other.

Pulled into the action is Liz Gold (O’Casey), an idealistic young woman whose courage and conviction force Leamas to navigate a world where loyalties fracture and betrayal is inevitable.

Behind the scenes, the brilliant and taciturn spymaster George Smiley orchestrates operations while the elusive Soviet mastermind Karla looms in the shadows, setting the stage for a conflict that will define a generation. Personal lives become collateral in a ruthless intelligence war, and as the lines between duty and love begin to blur, every emotion becomes a weapon.

The series was filmed principally in the Czech Republic, with location filming also in the UK and Germany.

It is produced by The Ink Factory, in coproduction with Amusement Park Film and in association with 127 Wall Productions and Paramount Television Studios. The series is written by Stephen Cornwell and Clarissa Ingram. Michael Lennox is an executive producer and is lead director, with Claudia Llosa as second director and co-executive producer.

The executive producers are Cornwell, who is also showrunner, Graham Yost, Simon Cornwell, Michele Wolkoff, Malte Grunert, Chris Rice, Matthew Macfadyen, Charlie Hunnam, Clarissa Ingram, Michael Lennox and Joe Tsai. Susanne Bier and Mike Lesslie are also executive producers. The executive producers for the BBC are Gaynor Holmes and Nick Lambon. Nick Cornwell is executive producer for the John le Carré estate. Sam Costin and Claudia Llosa, are co-executive producers and Nancy Bray is producer for The Ink Factory.

Legacy of Spies is set to launch exclusively on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK, and on MGM+ in the US, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil and Spanish-speaking Latin America. The series will also air on SBS in Australia, Sky New Zealand and Sky Switzerland, and Canal+ across France & French-speaking territories, Central & Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fifth Season is handling global sales. 

tagged in: BBC iPlayer, BBC One, Legacy of Spies, MGM