CULTURE

Brie Larson Will Reportedly Star as an Undercover CIA Agent in New Apple TV Series

She'll star as an undercover CIA agent in Apple's new drama series.


Los Angeles World Premiere Of Marvel Studios' "Captain Marvel"
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Just like fellow Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey, and Julia Roberts before her, Brie Larson will soon be diverging from her movie-heavy career and dipping her toe into the prestige television waters. According to Variety, Larson has signed on to star in and produce a new drama series for Apple’s upcoming streaming service.

The show, still untitled, will reportedly be based on the true story of Amaryllis Fox, who served as an undercover operative for the CIA throughout her mid-20s. The series will derive much of its content from Fox’s upcoming memoir, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, and is described as following Fox’s “journey in the CIA, told through the prism of her closest relationships.” It’ll mark Larson’s first recurring TV role in nearly a decade: She last starred as Toni Collette‘s angsty teenage daughter for all three seasons of United States of Tara.

While her CIA career was undoubtedly full of more than enough excitement to fill an entire series, the rest of Fox’s life is equally remarkable—and could easily be spun into many more seasons of Larson-fronted television. According to a bio from talent agency WME, Fox, as a teenager, volunteered at a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border, where she was briefly imprisoned for her work with the Burmese democracy movement. She attended Oxford University, during which time she continued volunteering in war-torn nations, then moved to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she developed an algorithm with the ability to predict terrorist activity, thus initiating her link to the CIA.

After several years with the spy agency, Fox started the e-commerce company Mulu, worked on Twitter’s e-commerce team, and, as of late 2015, now focuses full-time on writing about her experiences with counterterrorism. Last summer, she married Robert F. Kennedy III, and in January, they welcomed their first child together, daughter Bobby. So, plenty of content for Larson and company to mine.

This show is the latest to be announced as part of Apple’s new streaming service, which still has yet to be unveiled. Another drama, starring Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston and set in the cutthroat world of New York media, is in the works, as are projects from Oprah (who has a multiyear partnership with the company), Steven Spielberg, La La Land‘s Damien Chazelle, and Battlestar Galactica‘s Ron Moore.

Related: Brie Larson Says Jennifer Lawrence Helped Ease the Pressure She Felt After Winning an Oscar