The BBC and MGM+ have released these first glimpses of Matthew Macfadyen and Charlie Hunnam in Legacy of Spies, the highly anticipated espionage thriller, to mark the end of filming.
Adapted from John le Carré's global bestseller, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and drawing on additional material from his 2017 novel, A Legacy of Spies, the eight-part drama marks spymaster George Smiley's long-anticipated return to television with two-time Emmy and BAFTA award-winning Matthew Macfadyen in the iconic role, alongside Emmy-nominated Charlie Hunnam as the embattled, world-weary agent-runner and field operative, Alec Leamas.
The series also stars, among others, Daniel Brühl as Josef Fiedler, Devrim Lingnau Islamoglu as Doris Quinz, Agnes O'Casey as Liz Gold, Felix Kammerer as Hans-Dieter Mundt, Dan Stevens as Bill Haydon, Jake Dunn as Peter Guillam, Anjana Vasan as Connie Sachs, Charlotte Ritchie as Ann Smiley, Joe Alwyn as Jim Prideaux and Hugh Laurie as Control.
Legacy of Spies synopsis: When Alec Leamas, a highly experienced Circus field operative, recruits Doris Quinz (Devrim Lingnau Islamoglu), a young and dynamic East German woman, to smuggle high-value Stasi documents into the West, it sets in motion a series of events that threaten to explode in the crucible of Cold War Berlin. Pursuing Leamas and Doris are Josef Fiedler (Daniel Brühl) and Hans-Dieter Mundt (Felix Kammerer), two Stasi operatives whose ferocious desire to shut down the intelligence leak is matched only by their internal rivalry and an iron will to outmatch each other.
Pulled into the action is Liz Gold (Agnes O'Casey), an idealistic young woman whose courage and conviction force Leamas to navigate a world where loyalties fracture and betrayal is inevitable. Behind the scenes, the brilliant and taciturn spymaster George Smiley orchestrates operations while the elusive Soviet mastermind Karla looms in the shadows, setting the stage for a conflict that will define a generation. Personal lives become collateral in a ruthless intelligence war, and as the lines between duty and love begin to blur, every emotion becomes a weapon.
Legacy of Spies is set to launch exclusively on BBC iPlayer and BBC 1 in the UK, and on MGM+ in the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil and Spanish-speaking Latin America. The series will also air on SBS in Australia, Sky New Zealand and Sky Switzerland, and CANAL+ across France and French-speaking territories, Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The series was filmed principally in the Czech Republic, with location filming also in the UK and Germany.
The series is produced by The Ink Factory in co-production with Amusement Park Film and in association with 127 Wall Productions and Paramount Television Studios, for the BBC and MGM+, and is written by Stephen Cornwell and Clarissa Ingram.
Transmission details will follow when released.