Glenn Close is joining hit Israeli thriller “Tehran.”
Close, who has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, will be a series regular in the upcoming second season of the show, which aired on Apple TV Plus last summer and has become a global hit for the platform. The show originally premiered on Israel’s KAN public broadcaster last June. Variety understands that Apple TV Plus picked up the title from distributor Cineflix Rights as an acquisition, but following its success for the streamer, boarded the show as a co-producer.
Close is slated to play the role of Marjan Montazeri, a British woman living in Tehran, according to Apple. The first season of the series told the story of Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), a young Mossad agent undercover on a top secret mission in the heart of Tehran.
The series also stars Shaun Toub as Faraz, the head of internal investigations with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Shervin Alenabi as Milad, a young Israeli dissident and hacker who gets caught up in Tamar’s web of deception.
The first season of the show — created by Moshe Zonder, Dana Eden and Maor Kohn — was filmed in Athens, and brought together a diverse cast and crew of Israelis, Iranians, Greeks and more. Filming of the second season, which will air in 2022, is slated to begin soon and will also reportedly take place in Greece, despite an ongoing legal dispute over using funds allocated to the Israeli public broadcaster to produce a show overseas.
Close has been nominated for eight Oscars across four decades, most recently for her role in “Hillbilly Elegy.” She has three Emmys and three Tony Awards. The actor recently completed filming on Apple TV Plus film “Swan Song,” alongside Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris.
“Tehran” executive producer Julien Leroux, who helped to shepherd the show from its earliest stages, recently set up production company Paper Entertainment, which is a co-producer on the show and received backing from U.K. broadcaster Channel 4.
Manori Ravindran contributed to this report.