Matthew Macfadyen to star in John le Carré's Legacy of Spies

Emmy winner Matthew Macfadyen (Succession) is attached to play George Smiley in Legacy of Spies. Legacy of Spies is a television series based on John le Carré's series of novels featuring the character of George Smiley, an intelligence officer. The Ink Factory, which owns the rights to le Carré's work, is producing and Fifth Season is distributing the drama, which has been shopped on both sides of the Atlantic and has attracted interest from potential buyers, sources said.



Macfadyen (pictured) follows a long line of actors who have previously played the character on screen, including Rupert Davies in 1965’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold , Gary Oldman in 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , and Alec Guinness in the 1979 miniseries Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , among others.

Macfadyen won two Emmys and two BAFTAs for his role in the Emmy-winning HBO series Succession . Also known for his roles in films such as Pride and Prejudice and 2005’s Death at a Funeral , he was recently seen in Deadpool & Wolverine and will soon be starring in Holland , opposite Nicole Kidman , which premieres at SXSW on March 9.

The pitch for Legacy of Spies comes with multiple scripts and is written by Ink Factory co-founder Stephen Cornwell and Clarissa Ingram. Silo creator Graham Yost is executive producing the potential series, based on le Carré's series of novels featuring the character George Smiley; and the books The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honorable Schoolboy and several others, as well as some unpublished materials.

Ink Factory’s series and film adaptations of le Carré novels include the British television series The Little Drummer Girl (2018), directed by Park Chan-wook; the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning series The Night Manager, directed by Susanne Bier; and the Anton Corbijn-directed film A Most Wanted Man, starring Philip Seymour Hoffmann, in association with Amusement Park. The company is also developing a series based on le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and contemporary series adaptations of The Constant Gardener (in English) and A Most Wanted Man (in German).