Hilary Swank is on her way to Mars.
The two-time Academy Award winner has been cast in the lead role in Netflix’s upcoming drama “Away,” from Jason Katims and Matt Reeves.
Swank will play American astronaut Emma Green, who must leave her husband and teenage daughter behind to command an international space crew embarking upon a treacherous mission to the Red Planet. The series is loosely inspired by Chris Jones’ Esquire article of the same name, and is described as being about hope, humanity and how we need one another if we are to achieve impossible things.
Netflix issued a 10-episode order for the drama, which Swank will also executive produce, back in June, 2018.
“The Path” creator Jessica Goldberg will serve as showrunner, writer, and executive producer, alongside Katims, Reeves, Adam Kassan, Michelle Lee and Andrew Hinderaker, who wrote the first episode. Ed Zwick will direct the first episode and also serve as an EP.
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“Away” is produced by Universal Television, True Jack Productions, and 6th & Idaho.
The series is the latest small screen project to explore the gargantuan task of making it to the Red Planet in the last few years, after Nat Geo aired the first season of their original series “Mars” in 2016, and Hulu is prepping “The First” starring Sean Penn and Natascha McElhone. That series will chronicle a fictional effort to send the first manned mission to Mars. “The First” hails from executive producer Beau Willimon.
Swank is repped by WME, Management 360, and Jackoway Tyerman Wertheimer Austen Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner and Klein.