Veteran actor John Lithgow has boarded the cast of HBO's "Perry Mason" series.
The show, featuring "The Americans" star Matthew Rhys in the lead, will be helmed by Tim Van Patten, who is best known for directing many episodes of "The Sopranos", "Boardwalk Empire" and "Game of Thrones".
Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, the limited series is set in 1932 Los Angeles and follows the origins of American fiction's most legendary criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason (Rhys).
"Living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator, Mason is haunted by his wartime experiences in France and suffering the effects of a broken marriage. LA is booming while the rest of the country recovers from the Great Depression but a kidnapping gone very wrong leads to Mason exposing a fractured city as he uncovers the truth of the crime," the official logline of the show read.
Lithgow, 73, will portray Elias Birchard "EB" Jonathan, a personal attorney at the nadir of his career and a semi-regular employer of private investigator Mason. A mentor and a father figure to Mason, EB is handed the kind of case he has not seen in years: a high-profile parallel investigation to the LAPD involving a child kidnapping, the network said in a statement.
The show will also feature actor Tatiana Maslany as Sister Alice, the leader of the Radiant Assembly of God, preaching three sermons a day to a hungry congregation and a radio audience that spans the country.
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Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald will be serving as the showrunners.
The duo will also executive produced the show alongside Robert Downey Jr, Susan Downey and Amanda Burrell of Team Downey, Joe Horacek and Van Patten. Rhys will also serve as producer.