The upcoming series of Apple, The Crowded Room has started picking up pace taking into account the frequent cast announcements and the amount of details shared till date. As per the recent announcement, the series is getting three new cast members, namely, Sasha Lane, Christopher Abbott, and Emma Laird. The anthology series is being written by Akiva Goldsman who has previously worked on the big titles like Batman Forever, A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, and I Am Legend. Goldsman is also serving as the executive producer of the series.
There is a long list of producers that include, Holland, Goldsman, Suzanne Heathcote, Alexandra Milchan, Arnon Milchan, Yariv Milchan, and Michael Schaefer. Kornel Mundruczo will direct the premiere season and will serve as executive producer as well.
Tom Holland will be the leading star of the series, playing the character of a certain Danny Sullivan. Holland is well known for his role as Peter Parker/Spiderman in Marvel Cinematic Universe. Recently, he played Nathan Blake in Unchartered. He has played a pivotal role in multiple big titles like The Devil All The Time, Chaos Walking, Cherry and The Lost City Of Z.
Opposite Tom Holland, will star Amanda Seyfried in the upcoming anthology series. Seyfried will be playing the role of Rya, a clinical psychologist and a single mother. Rya doesn’t understand the line between personal and professional life and puts her patients far ahead of her own kids. Seyfried is known for her roles in Les Miserables, Mank,Mama Mia!, The Art of Racing In The Rain, etc. She was recently seen in The Dropout as Elizabeth Holmes.
Sasha Lane has bagged the role of Ariana, Danny’s best friend and biggest supporter. The duo will be at each other’s back and deal with issues together and face whatever shows up, together.
Emma Laird’s Isabel and Danny are a best mate pair. The pair’s friendship dates back to their high school years. Even though, Danny is more like an invisible personality, Isabel knows his caring and understanding nature and she’s his biggest supporter.
Christopher Abbott joins the cast as Stan, Danny’s attorney. He himself has a certain set of traumas and issue he’s been tackling, which are the results of his time in Vietnam War.
The Crowded Room Plot
The series will be produced in anthological format and will highlight the struggles and massive courage and determination mental patients portray in the path of dealing with their conditions. The story is a combination of Goldsman’s personal experiences and the book, The Minds Of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes.
In the year 1977, the Ohio state police received complaints of multiple rapes and extortion in Ohio State University Campus. The victims were kidnapped from the campus, then ‘driven into countryside, raped, made to cash checks and then robbed.’ Luckily, the perp left his fingerprints in one of the cars and served the police department a hard evidence. After running it in the systems, the police found the perp’s identity to be William “Billy” Milligan. What was expected to be a usual stakeout, arrest and conviction of the infamous ‘Campus Rapist’ took an unprecedented turn when the frail looking Billy smashed the porcelain toilet bowl in his cell with his bare hands and tried to slit his wrists with the shards. The repeated psychological evaluation gave mind boggling results where it was revealed that Billy is suffering from Dissociative Personality Disorder, which means he has multiple personalities or ‘people’ living in his head, twenty four in total. Each ‘person’ has its own identity, hobbies, character traits, sexuality, interests and responsibilities. Sounds unreal? But it is what it is. The character of Danny Sullivan will loosely based on Billy Milligan himself.
The Crowded Room Trailer and Release Date
There haven’t been any announcement regarding the trailer or release date. However, looking at the frequency of the announcements, one can expect more details to surface in the coming time and the wait might not be too long.