Anansi Boys: Amazon Series Casts Delroy Lindo as Mr. Nancy

Amazon Prime Video's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys has found its spidery trickster god in Delroy Lindo. According to Variety, Lindo will play Mr. Nancy, the estranged father of the story's two lead characters, Charlie Nancy and Spider. Mr. Nancy is Anansi, a trickster and the god of stories. He's described in the series as "all charm," but Charlie only knows him as a layabout who cheated on Charlie's mother. Who knew nothing of his father's godly side, but he'll soon find out when Spider, the brother Charlie didn't know he had, comes calling after Mr. Nancy's death.

"Delroy Lindo is a giant of the stage and the screen, and we are so lucky to have him," Gaiman said in a statement. "I cannot wait to see his gravitas and charm being deployed for the benefit of Anansi Boys, as he plays an unreliable father with hidden depths."

Lindo's most recent work includes his critically-acclaimed performance in Spike Lee's Netflix film Da 5 Bloods. He worked with Lee previously on Malcolm X. His other major movie roles include The Core, The One, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Get Shorty. His upcoming performances include a role in The Harder They Fall. On television, he's a regular on Paramount+'s The Good Fight and has made appearances in series including Kidnapped, The Chicago Code, and Believe.

Amazon Prime Video announced it'd adapt Anansi Boys after renewing Good Omens, another Gaiman project, for a surprise second season. Filming will begin in Scotland later this year.

"Anansi Boys began around 1996, from a conversation I had with Lenny Henry about writing a story that was diverse and part of the culture that we both loved. I wrote a novel, an (I hope) joyous and funny book about a dead god and his two sons, about birds and ghosts and beasts and cops, based in Caribbean and African tales. It was my first number one NYT Bestseller, and went on to become a beloved and award winning book," Gaiman said in the announcement.

"Anansi Boys as a TV series has been a long time coming — I first started working with Endor and Red on making it over a decade ago. We needed Amazon Prime to come on board and embrace our vision, we needed a lead director with the craft and vision of Hanelle Culpepper, we needed the creative and technical wizardry of Douglas Mackinnon, who worked out how we could push the bounds of the possible to shoot a story set all over the world in a huge studio outside Edinburgh, and we needed the rest of the amazing talents that nobody knows about yet."

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