Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris had perhaps the best ensemble of any film this year, nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at this year's Screen Actors Guild Awards. However, even amidst the praise for the entire group of wonderful actors, Corey Stoll's magically deadpan performance as Ernest Hemingway stole (sorry) the show. Now the Law & Order: L.A. regular is putting all the positive buzz to good use by landing a key role in Kevin Spacey and David Fincher's House of Cards, the much anticipated first television series from Netflix.
Deadline first reported that Stoll - who plays Detective TJ Jaruszalski on the Los Angeles spin-off of Law & Order and was the only member of the original cast to remain after series’ overhaul - will join the project as Patrick Russo, an Italian-American Congressman whose womanizing and debauchery creates a mess that Kevin Spacey's conspiring Representative Frank Underwood has to clean up. Stoll's Russo is already divorced with two kids and having an affair with secretary before he gets caught driving while under the influence of alcohol and with a prostitute. And there is another scandal that Chief Party Whip, Underwood is forced to keep quiet in order to keep his personal plans to bring down the president on track after being passed over for the Secretary of State position. I guess Underwood wants to bring the whole government down like a... hm, I can't think of the right phrase.
Anyway, I can't wait to see Stoll and Spacey share the small screen together, especially since (at least for the pilot) it will be under the directorial eye of David Fincher. Stoll becomes another integral piece of an already amazing cast that House of Cards has assembled including Spacey, Robin Wright, Kate Mara and Kristen Connolly. The series is another American television remake of a hit British series, this time the 1990s BBC political drama of the same name based on Michael Dobbs’ novel and adapted by The Ides Of March screenwriter Beau Willimon.
