Christopher Eccleston Returning to US in New TV Series

Fantastic! The award-winning British actor, known to many as the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who, will be headed back to America for his first regular role in a US television series.

Fans of the cult sci-fi thriller Heroes will recall that Eccleston had appeared in the first season as the recurring character Claude, the invisibility-powered posthuman. In his next television project, his character will have neither superpowers nor sonic screwdriver. Quite the contrary.

Eccleston is set to costar in the ten-episode freshman season of Damon Lindelof’s (Lost) adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel, The Leftovers, for HBO. In it he’ll play former reverend and self-published tabloid editor Matt Jamison, one of several small townspeople who “didn’t make the cut” after an event akin to the Rapture happens.

Additional cast members of The Leftovers include series star Justin Theroux (Six Feet Under), Ann Dowd (Masters of Sex), Amanda Warren (Seven Psychopaths), Carrie Coon (Law & Order: SVU), and Liv Tyler (The Lord of the Rings), amongst others.

The Leftovers is currently in pre-production, so stay tuned for the premiere date.

In the meantime, you can catch Eccleston as the baddie Malekith in Thor: The Dark World, which opens in the UK on 30 October and in the US on 8 November 2013.

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