Peter Sarsgaard (Jackie) is set for a lead role opposite Jeff Daniels and Tahar Rahim in Hulu’s straight-to-series drama The Looming Tower. Based on Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 9/11 exposé, the series hails from Oscar-nominated Dan Futterman (Foxcatcher), Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Going Clear) and Legendary Television.
The Looming Tower traces the rising threat of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and takes a controversial look at how the rivalry between the CIA and FBI inadvertently might have set the stage for the tragedy of 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Sarsgaard will play Martin Schmidt, a CIA analyst who invariably believes he’s by far the smartest person in the room. Under orders to share intelligence with John O’Neill (Daniels) and the FBI, Schmidt opts instead to hoard information under the misguided notion that the CIA is the only agency equipped to battle potential terrorist threats.
Sarsgaard’s most recent feature credits include Jackie and The Magnificent Seven, and he next will be seen in a co-starring role in the Pablo Escobar film Escobar. On the TV side, Sarsgaard played the series-regular role of Ray Seward in The Killing and starred as Hector in NBC’s The Slap.
