While David Harbour and Pedro Pascal have both had memorable film roles in recent years, including the former playing Red Guardian in Black Widow and the latter playing Maxwell Lord in Wonder Woman 1984, these actors have been doing especially well for themselves in TV. Harbour is still going strong as Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, and Pascal has been starring as Din Djarin in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Now it’s been announced that these two are coming together for a deadly new TV show based on a real-life story.
HBO is developing a limited series called My Dentist’s Murder Trial that David Harbour and Pedro Pascal will both star in and executive produce. Deadline shared that Patriot’s Steve Conrad is writing the series, executive producing and will also direct the pilot episode. Other executive producers include Bruce Terris, Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch from Escape Artists (with Taylor Latham from the same company co-executive producing), as well as Molly Allen, MGM Television and James Lasdun.
My Dentist’s Murder Trial is based on 2017 New Yorker article “My Dentist’s Murder Trial: Adultery, False Identities, and a Lethal Sedation” by James Lasdun. The story was about Dr. Gilberto Nunez, who was indicted in 2015 for killing his friend Thomas Kolman by getting him “to ingest a substance that caused his death.” Nunez was also hit with two forgery counts, including for him posing as a C.I.A. agent, and he’d been having an affair with Kolman’s wife, Linda. Nunez went on trial in 2018, and while he was found not guilty of murder, he was found guilty on fraud charges, for which he was sent to prison. Pedro Pascal will play Dr. Nunez, but it hasn’t been clarified if David Harbour will play Thomas Kolman or James Lasdun, with Nunez having been the latter’s family dentist.
David Harbour, Pedro Pascal and Steve Conrad all have established ties with HBO going into My Dentist’s Murder Trial. Years before Stranger Things came along, Harbour recurred as Elliot Hirsch in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, while Pascal will be playing Joel Miller in the network’s The Last of Us TV adaptation, which wrapped production in November and is expected to premiere sometime in 2023. As for Conrad, he’s developing the Game of Thrones prequel series Dunk & Egg.
Since My Dentist’s Murder Trial has only just been announced, it’s hard to say when it’ll be available for HBO and HBO Max subscribers to watch. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how David Harbour and Pedro Pascal do together in such a prestige project. Looking ahead to other aspects of their future, along with reprising Hopper in the final season of Stranger Things, Harbour is set to play Santa Claus in the action comedy Violent Night. As for Pascal, we’ll see him back in the Star Wars universe for The Mandalorian Season 3 sometime next year.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on My Dentist’s Murder Trial, and scan through our 2022 TV schedule to learn what shows are left to arrive for the rest of this year.
