Martha Higareda (Royal Pains) is set as the female lead opposite Joel Kinnaman and Hap and Leonard’s James Purefoy will co-star in Altered Carbon, Netflix’s futuristic drama series conceived, written and executive produced by Laeta Kalogridis. Also cast in the series, from Skydance Television, are Dichen Lachman (The Last Ship) and Leonardo Nam (Westworld).
Based on Richard Morgan’s award-winning 2002 cyberpunk sci-fi novel, Altered Carbon is set in the 25th century when the human mind has been digitized and the soul is transferable from one body to the next. Takeshi Kovacs (Kinnaman), a former elite interstellar warrior known as an Envoy who has been imprisoned for 500 years, is downloaded into a future he’d tried to stop. If he can solve a single murder in a world where technology has made death nearly obsolete, he’ll get a chance at a new life on Earth.
Higareda will play Kristin Ortega, a smart and tough Lieutenant in the Bay City PD. She and her family are immigrants from the North LaTam Zone (an area that was once Mexico, Belize, Guatamala and El Salvador) and Ortega is following in the footsteps of her father, a cop who died heroically in the line of duty.
Purefoy will play Laurens Bancroft. One of the superwealthy class known as Methuselahs, Bancroft is rich, influential, and over 500 years old. He is a man of contradictions, ruthlessly powerful yet unexpectedly moral, his deep passion for all the pleasures of life matched only by his need to exert iron control over everything around him.
Lachman is Reileen Kawahara, Takeshi Kovacs’ (Kinnaman) older sister, they share a dark and violent childhood. They were killers for hire who became revolutionaries, but always stayed at each other’s side … until Reileen was killed. Nam is Stronghold Kovacs, the body Takeshi Kovacs was born into. As a young man, he joined the Uprising, fell in love, became an Envoy and then endured the loss of everyone and everything that mattered to him.
Miguel Sapochnik (Game of Thrones) will direct the first episode. Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross executive produce alongside Steve Blackman and Kalogridis’ Mythology Entertainment partners Brad Fischer and James Vanderbilt.
