Discovery Crime Series Manifesto Casts Sam Worthington and Keisha Castle-Hughes

The recent acquisition of high-profile actor Paul Bettany made it clear that the Discovery Channel will treat the upcoming anthology crime series Manifesto as a scripted prestige project atypical to the educational cable outlet’s usual documentary/reality programming. Indeed, with the series set to showcase notable FBI cases in dramatic fashion, Bettany’s role as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski will see him engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with FBI agents played by some also-familiar faces.

With Manifesto set to primarily focus on the FBI characters who ultimately captured Kaczynski, the latest duo of cast of acquisitions includes the would-be protagonist of the anthology series’ inaugural outing. Fittingly, THR reports that Sam Worthington will join the series to play FBI agent Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald, a key figure in closing the Unabomber case who utilized unconventional linguistic profiling techniques, ultimately finding his bomb-mailing quarry's remote Montana cabin location.

Apropos to Worthington’s lead role, Deadline reports that the subsequent cast addition will see Keisha Castle-Hughes jump aboard the series to play Tabby, described as a street agent who become Fitz’s partner on the Kaczynski case. Consequently, we should expect much of the series to focus on the friction between the two, since the green, by-the-book psychology-studying Tabby will be the constant check against the eccentric Fitz’s methodology. In a dynamic akin to The X-Files, it’s sounding like Tabby will be the Scully to Fitz’s Mulder.

For the Englishman Worthington, who burst on scene starring in the uber-lucrative 2009 film Avatar, followed by an enviable run of big-budgeted blockbuster attempts, Manifesto will be his first starring role on the small screen. He can be currently seen in director Mel Gibson’s war drama Hacksaw Ridge. By contrast, Aussie co-star Keisha Castle-Hughes, whose acting debut as a child in 2002’s Whale Rider earned her an Oscar nod, has made a home on television, recently fielding a recurring role on Game of Thrones and was a regular on Showtime’s cancelled series Roadies.  

Overall, Manifesto is starting to shape up as a compelling offering in the wheelhouse of the surging true crime genre.

Our original article below as it appeared on November 29, 2016:

Paul Bettany Will Play the Unabomber in Discovery Channel Drama Manifesto

With the True Crime genre becoming increasingly popular in a rapidly evolving television medium, the Discovery Channel are preparing a fascinating scripted offering that chronicles the exploits of the FBI in some of their best-known cases. Titled Manifesto, the network apparently has ambitious designs for the new series, evidenced by the acquisition of a high-profile actor set to play one of the United States’ most notorious domestic terrorists.

Deadline reports that Paul Bettany will star in the debut season of Manifesto, playing Ted Kaczynski, better known in the annals of history as the Unabomber. A former Harvard student who became radicalized against industrialization and technology, Kaczynski targeted universities with mailed homemade bombs from 1978-1995, eluding authorities and garnering a public mystique, notably from an iconic mustachioed, aviators-sporting hoodie-wearing composite sketch. His eventual arrest in 1996 by the FBI was the culmination of one of the agency’s most exorbitant investigations.

The premiere season of the anthology series will focus primarily on FBI agent Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald, who was an integral part of Kaczynski's capture in a remote Montana cabin – forever creating the juxtaposition of unkempt naturalists in cabins in the woods with eccentric terrorists. Using his skills as a linguist, Fitzgerald discovered the Unabomber’s identity through intricate analysis of the infamous “Manifesto," which was published in 1995 by The New York Times and The Washington Post under threat of more attacks.

For the London-born Paul Bettany, who starred in notable films such as A Beautiful MindMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World and The Da Vinci Code, he fields this most intriguing part in Manifesto as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski amidst other major projects on his docket like thriller Official Secrets opposite Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Dormer, war drama Journey’s End and, of course, a reprisal of his Marvel Cinematic Universe role as android hero Vision in the 2018 mega-movie Avengers: Infinity War.

In the aftermath of Discovery’s recent scripted plunge with miniseries Harley and the Davidsons, Bettany’s Unabomber will headline the prestige-imbued Manifesto, with Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti set as executive producers. It will certainly be interesting to see Bettany – who was memorable in The Da Vinci Code as an extremist, penance-rope-rocking murderous monk – tap into his inner reclusive manifesto-composing killer.