American Gods Casts Jeremy Davies As Jesus

Entertainment Weekly reports, Jeremy Davies has landed the role of Jesus in American Gods, a television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel of the same name.

Based on his official character description, Jesus' story arc will intertwine with Kristin Chenoweth's Easter, a.k.a. Ostara. The description reads: "Resurrected on Ostara's feast day, Jesus has always been generous in sharing the Easter holiday with the ancient goddess. But the overly empathetic Son of God would be crushed to know that Ostara harbors some deeply buried resentment over the issue."

By the way, though Jesus is mentioned in Gaiman's book, he never appears. In a 2011 blog post, Gaiman explained why that is: "Jesus actually did turn up in a scene which I cut, as it just didn't work, but I figured a book about American Religion was not the book I wanted to write, which was about American Belief, so I let some things go..."

Davies, 46, is a veteran actor who is probably best known for playing Cpl. Timothy E. Upham in Saving Private Ryan, Daniel Faraday in ABC's Lost, and Dickie Bennett in the FX's Justified, which earned him "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series" at 2012's Primetime Emmy Awards. Additionally, Davies played Ritchie Simpson in a pair of Constantine episodes, guest starred in the first season of Fox's Lucifer, and recently landed a recurring role in the upcoming season Sleepy Hollow.

American Gods has been translated into over 30 languages and earned numerous accolades including Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel. The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society's modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.

"American Gods" is produced by FremantleMedia North America. Bryan Fuller ("Hannibal," "Pushing Daisies," "Heroes") and Michael Green ("The River," "Kings," "Heroes") are writers and showrunners. David Slade ("Hannibal," "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse") is directing the pilot and additional episodes. FMNA's Craig Cegielski and Stefanie Berk are executive producing the series along with Fuller, Green, Slade and Neil Gaiman.

The cast features Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith, Gillian Anderson as Media, Peter Stormare as Czernobog, Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy, Demore Barnes as Mr. Ibis, Kristin Chenoweth as Easter, and Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya.

American Gods will premiere on Starz in 2017.