Leslie Mann Cast in Amazon’s Sci-Fi Series The Power

Amazon Prime has had some surprising hits in original television series over the past year, with genre-bending shows such as Good Omens, The Boys, Fleabag, and Undone. The streaming service has an array of projects on their roster, including a ten-part adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s feminist sci-fi novel The Power. While it’s unclear exactly when the series will hit the small screen, it has officially found its first cast member. On Thursday, Amazon Studios and Sister Pictures announced that Leslie Mann would be playing Margot Cleary-Lopez, one of the central characters to the series’ global story. Mann has a prolific career in film and television, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Other Woman, and Blockers.

The Power opens on “The Day of the Girls”, in which teenage girls are suddenly able to electrocute people with their fingertips, a hereditary and permanent power that has been kept dormant for generations. The teenage girls soon learn that they can awaken “The Power” in older women, leading to nearly every woman on Earth having the ability — which can also easily hurt or kill others. This leads to a shift in gender and political dynamics throughout the world, which affects the series’ cast of characters in wildly different ways.

Mann’s Margot Cleary-Lopez will play an interesting role in that, as she is an American politician on the rise and until now, not only a woman in a man’s world, but one with a questionable taste in jackets according to online trolls. Described as vital, charming and incredibly smart, Margot comes to see that power resides with strength rather than authority. As her career takes flight, her husband Rob and daughter Jos are privately affected by her success. For one of them, where previously there was conflict now comes a greater understanding, and for the other where there was love, comes hurt and betrayal.

The original novel also follows Allie, an American foster kid who uses The Power to form a new religious group, Roxy, the daughter of a London crime boss, and Tunde, a Nigerian journalist with a front-row seat to society’s new changes. None of those roles have been publicly cast at this time.

The Power was originally released in 2017, and was ultimately included on Barack Obama’s list of his favorite books from that year. It has since been translated into over twenty-five languages and won several literary awards.

The series is adapted for the small screen by Alderman, who is working alongside an all-female writing staff including co-executive producer Claire Wilson (Rocks, Little Drummer Girl, Gangs of London), co-executive producer and story consultant Sarah Quintrell (Ellen, The Trial: A Murder in the Family), Whit Anderson (Ozark, Daredevil), Stacy Osei-Kuffour (Watchmen, PEN15) and novelist Rebecca Levene (The Hollow Gods Trilogy). Emmy winner Reed Morano (The Handmaid’s Tale) is set to direct the series.

Executive producers on the series include Alderman, Morano, Jane Featherstone (Chernobyl, Giri/Haji, The Split), Naomi de Pear (Don’t Forget the Driver, The Bisexual, Flowers). The series is produced by Tim Bricknell (Trust, Taboo) and is the latest UK produced Amazon Original series.

Are you excited to see Mann join the cast of The Power? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!