Former The 100 actor Ricky Whittle has been cast as Shadow Moon in the upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. The will enter production this April.
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In a press release, Gaiman said, “I’m thrilled that Ricky has been cast as Shadow. His auditions were remarkable. The process of taking a world out of the pages of a book, and putting it onto the screen has begun. American Gods is, at its heart, a book about immigrants, and it seems perfectly appropriate that Shadow will, like so much else, be Coming to America. I’m delighted Ricky will get to embody Shadow. Now the fun starts.”
Showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green said, “We searched every continent and country and all the islands in between for our Shadow Moon, and we are lucky to have found Ricky.Fans of the novel will find he has every bit of the heart of the character they fell in love with.”
In addition to The 100, Whittle has appeared in Austenland, Hollyoaks,Mistresses, NCIS and Holby City.
American Gods is Gaiman’s Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Award winning novel from 2001. The story follows “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.”