Liev Schreiber Cast as Anne Frank's Father in Disney+ Series A Small Light

Liev Schreiber is set to portray Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, in the Disney+ limited series A Small Light. The fact-based scripted series from National Geographic focuses on the real-life story of Miep Gies, who played a critical role in hiding Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis during World War II. Disney+ has announced Bel Powley (The Morning Show) will lead the series as Miep, Otto's secretary, as part of the cast that includes Schreiber (Ray Donovan) and Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders) as Miep's husband Jan. 

Described by Disney, "The powerful, eight-episode limited series tells the remarkable story of 20-something secretary Miep Gies, who didn't hesitate when her boss Otto Frank asked her to hide him and his family from the Nazis during World War II. For the next two years, Miep, her husband Jan and several other everyday heroes watched over the eight souls hiding in the secret annex. It was Miep who found Anne's diary and preserved it so that she and Otto could later share it with the world. 

"The series title comes from something Gies said late in her life: 'I don't like being called a hero because no one should ever think you have to be special to help others. Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room.'"

"Miep kept her heroic work secret from her friends and family while also struggling with the everyday pressures of work, daily life in wartime under Nazi occupation, and a new marriage," reads the description for Miep in A Small Light, honoring the real-life Miep as "an unlikely heroine whose inspirational story is timeless and deeply humanistic." 

After Anne died in 1945, it was Miep who gave Otto his daughter's diary she had saved from the hands of the Nazis. In 1947, Otto Frank famously published Anne's diary, which has been published in more than 70 languages across the globe.

Joan Rater and Tony Phelan (ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Council of Dads) will serve as executive producers and showrunners of the series they wrote. Susanna Fogel (The Flight Attendant) will direct multiple episodes of the eight-episode limited series, including the pilot. Disney's ABC Signature (Grey's Anatomy, Station 19, A Million Little Things) produces in partnership with Keshet Studios (NBC's La Brea). Principal photography on A Little Light begins this summer in Prague and Amsterdam.