Olivia Colman and Susan Sarandon confirmed in starry line-up for new TV spy drama series based on classic 1960s film

The cast of Channel 4’s upcoming series Army of Shadows has expanded, with the likes of Olivia Colman and Susan Sarandon joining the fray.

The six-part series, which is coming to our screens courtesy of MobLand creator Ronan Bennett as well as Studiocanal, Two Cities Television and Channel 4, will tell the story of a near-future authoritarian Britain under de facto American occupation.

Colman (The Favourite) and Sarandon’s (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) roles are yet to be announced.

Also joining the ensemble cast are Leila Farzad (I Hate Suzie), Luther Ford (The Crown), Amara Okereke (In the Lost Lands) and Patrick O’Kane (The Day of the Jackal).

Other new additions include Anjli Mohindra (The Lazarus Project), Ed Ashley (Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) and Zoë Telford (The Crow Girl).

They join the previously announced Paddy Considine, America Ferrera, Alex Hassell and Kit Harington.

The new series has been inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 film and Joseph Kessel’s seminal book of the same name, which famously dramatised the emergence of the French Resistance to the Nazi Occupation of France during World War II. Bennett will tell a new story inspired by the underlying works, exploring how resistance takes shape in an occupied Great Britain.

It has been developed and produced with the support of the Melville family and the Kessel estate.

Watch the trailer below for Melville's 1969 classic, considered one of the greatest war movies ever made and the inspiration behind the new series.

The official synopsis for the new series reads: "Britain looks almost normal, but the flags are different, the news is careful, and nobody says certain things out loud anymore. But everyone can feel it. Somewhere beneath the surface of ordinary life something has gone terribly, quietly wrong."

It continues: "Out of the shadows emerges a former soldier known only as Berry, who starts building a secret resistance network. He knows one thing above all else: don’t act before you’re ready. An unlikely group starts to coalesce around him – people who’ve decided they can’t look away any longer: a soldier, a student, a radiographer, a journalist. Ordinary people, with ordinary lives, making an extraordinary and irreversible choice…

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"Against them: a state with unlimited reach, a ruthless minister who’ll do whatever it takes to maintain "order", and an American intelligence operative called Jessie, who is very, very good at her job. Army of Shadows is a tense, propulsive thriller about what resistance actually costs. If your country were occupied, what would you do?"

Army of Shadows is coming soon to Channel 4.

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Authors

Molly Moss is a Trends Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest trends across TV, film and more. She has an MA in Newspaper Journalism and has previously written for publications including The Guardian, The Times and The Sun Online.