One of the biggest advantages to “making it” in Hollywood is the ability to pick and choose one’s projects. After a long and prolific career – replete with multiple Emmy nominations – actor Alan Cumming will pursue a long-time passion project of his own.
According to Deadline, Cumming has been confirmed to star in an upcoming Showtime pilot Florent. A dark comedy, the project will center on New York restaurateur Florent Morellet and the incredibly odd French diner he ran for 23 years in an ever-changing New York landscape. The show will focus heavily upon Morellet’s relationship with neighborhood low-lifes, the NYPD, and the LGBT community as it began to rise in New York. Florent's subject matter comes as particularly significant to Cumming, who himself proudly identifies as a member of the LGBT community.
While the project originally found a home at the Sundance Channel last year, it has since moved to Showtime, where it joins the ranks of such programs as Shameless and House of Lies. Patricia Resnick, whose previous work on Mad Men certainly affirms her ability to take dark period pieces and imbue them with necessary amounts of humor and lightness, will pen the project.
Much of the show is set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s – which Morellet himself suffers from – and the impact such an epidemic had on the community. This era has recently begun to receive much more attention from the mainstream media, with Dallas Buyers Club recently garnering Matthew McConaughey an Oscar for his performance as HIV positive Ron Woodroof; that film also tackled the subject matter in a darkly humorous light, suggesting that our society as a whole has become ready to openly discuss the disease in slightly less morbid terms.
A dark comedy such as this seems right up Cumming’s alley. He currently appears on CBS’ The Good Wife as political consultant and crisis manager Eli Gold – a character known for sarcastic, conniving nature. Even Cumming’s forays into major motion pictures often skewed towards the darkly comedic. As Nightcrawler in X2, and Boris in Pierce Brosnan’s freshman Bond film Goldeneye, the actor continuously imbued his characters with a humor that ranged from tragic to downright villainous at times.
Cumming’s commitment to The Good Wife is contracted on a season-by-season basis. This means that if Florent gains traction, the actor could potentially pull out of the CBS drama after next season to commit himself to his passion project.
Not much else has been announced about the upcoming Florent, we will keep you updated with details about the project as more information becomes available.
