While I still haven’t totally gotten behind the idea of FX adapting Ethan and Joel Coen’s Fargo for TV, as of this writing, the drama can already boast it has one of the best casts on TV. Billy Bob Thorton, Martin Freeman, Joey King and Colin Hanks are now being joined by the outstanding trio of Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad), Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Oliver Platt (The Big C) according to THR, as well as Private Practice’s Kate Walsh. While this crew doesn’t add up in theory to William H. Macy, Frances McDormand and Steve Buscemi, it’s the most impressive movie-to-series cast I can think of, and we won’t even need to compare them, since the plotline will be completely different.
Fargo will be a limited series that follows another crime story in the same humorously offbeat and murderous vein of the film. While I’m not sure who the killers or victims will be, we do have some character descriptions, ya know.
Odenkirk will star as Deputy, a Bemidji, Minnesota cop with rank over a younger and smarter deputy played by Allison Tolman (Sordid Lives). I can’t wait to see how obnoxiously stubborn he’ll be. Howerton will play the ambitious personal trailer Don Chumph, which should give him a chance to pop his shirt off every now and then, something his character on It’s Always Sunny is constantly trying to do. Gina Hess (Walsh) is a former stripper turned trophy wife and mother of two boys, while Stavros Milos (Platt) is none other than the Supermarket King of Minnesota. Somebody better ask Stavros if he got some of his meat from any local woodchippers.
Odenkirk’s popularity has skyrocketed recently, with Breaking Bad’s audience growing in droves over the last couple of years, enough so that a spinoff series centered on his Saul Goodman character is in the works. There’s no sign on when that AMC project will begin, and I'm now assuming that it’ll happen after Fargo is filmed.
You can catch also catch Howerton in It's Always Sunny's ninth season, in the decent CollegeHumor flick Coffeetown that hit VOD a few months back, or in the last couple of The Mindy Project episodes. Platt is currently filming Matt Shakman’s small town thriller Cut Bank, and can hopefully soon be seen in the star-studded comedy drama Gods Behaving Badly, with quite a few projects coming out next year. And Walsh will be seen next year in Courteney Cox’s directorial debut Just Before I Go and Ross Clarke’ adaptation of Craig Clevenger’s Dermaphoria.
Production on Fargo is set to start this November in Calgary, and we may see it on TV as early as spring of next year. In the meantime, you’ll find some of Odenkirk’s best lines as Saul Goodman below.
