Two-time Academy Award-winner Sean Penn is the latest movie star to take his acting chops to the small screen.
The Milk and Mystic River Oscar winner will star in Hulu’s upcoming space drama The First from House of Cards creator Beau Willimon, the streaming service announced.
Penn has guested on several TV shows throughout his celebrated career (Ellen, Friends, Two and a Half Men), but the Hulu project marks his first role as a series regular.
“I have such deep admiration for Sean’s immense talent and extraordinary body of work,” Willimon said in a statement. “I feel very lucky to be collaborating with an artist of his calibre.”
Details about Penn’s role are still shrouded in secrecy, but the series is set in the near future and follows the first human mission to Mars. The First deals with the challenges of interplanetary colonisation, Hulu said, and the story focuses on the astronauts, their families and loved ones, and the ground team on Earth.
Hulu and the UK’s Channel 4 gave the project a straight-to-series order. Willimon will write the script and serve as executive producer alongside his producing partner Jordan Tappis under their Westward Productions banner. IMG will handle all international rights.
Production is set to begin this year, and the show is slated to premiere in 2018.
Penn is the latest get for Hulu, which earned top honours at Sunday’s Emmy Awards when its original series The Handmaid’s Tale became the first streaming show to win the prize for drama series.
