Donald Sutherland Joins Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant in HBO’s ‘The Undoing’

By Variety Staff

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Donald Sutherland has joined the cast of the upcoming HBO miniseries “The Undiong,” joining previously announced stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. Sutherland is set to play Franklin Renner, Grace’s (Kidman) father, a retired financier and loving grandfather, who is tasked with protecting his family when turbulent revelations come to light.

The six-episode series is based on the book “You Should Have Known” by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It centers on Grace Sachs (Kidman), who is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. She’s a successful therapist, has a devoted husband, Jonathan (Grant), and young son who attends an elite private school in New York City. Overnight a chasm opens in her life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster, and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.

Kidman is executive producing under her Blossom Films banner along with Blossom Films’ Per Saari. David E. Kelley will serve as showrunner, writer, and executive producer via David E. Kelley Productions. Bruna Papandrea will executive produce through Made Up Stories. It was announced last week that Susanne Bier will direct all six episodes of “The Undoing” in addition to serving as an executive producer. Kidman, Kelley, Saari, and Papandrea also executive produce the HBO series “Big Little Lies,” with Kidman also starring. The second season of that series is due to launch on HBO next year.

Sutherland is represented by CAA and Jerry Longarzo at Klevan Longarzo Vance Blumensaadt LLP.