Hulu’s Catch-22 casts Hugh Laurie
Hulu ’s adaptation of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 has just added Hugh Laurie to the cast as Major de Coverley.
Slash Film reports that Laurie joins cast members George Clooney, who will play Colonel Cathcart, and Christopher Abbott, who will play the main character Yossarian. Major de Coverley sounds like an insouciant but imposing officer, a man which lies somewhere between Hawkeye Pierce and Lawrence of Arabia, but terrifying and with an eye patch.
“A noble, leonine presence…He spends his time pitching horseshoes, listening to jazz on his phonograph, mixing himself martinis, and hiring apartments for the officers in every new city the Americans take.”
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He doesn’t seem to do much of anything of importance and yet his presence in any city seems to predicate its fall to the Americans. It sounds perfect for Hugh Laurie.
Laurie – perhaps known best to US audiences from FOX’s House — has more recently had acclaimed roles in Amazon’s The Night Manager, as Tom James in the latest season of Veep, and as the title character in Hulu’s mystery thriller Chance. He also starred with George Clooney in Tomorrowland.
Catch-22 follows the missions of US Air Force bombardier Yossarian during WWII. While the army keeps increasing the number of missions that must be flown in order to complete the terms of service, soldiers would also be in violation of the insidious Catch-22 rule if they make any attempt to avoid that service.
Catch-22 states that any soldier willing to put their life at risk to fly combat missions must be insane, but any attempt to avoid putting your life at risk by asking to be removed from duty proves sanity and makes you ineligible to be removed from duty.
Considering the non-linear nature of Catch-22, it should be interesting to see how Hulu depicts the famous satire.
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George Clooney is executive producing alongside Grant Heslov, who has teamed with Clooney on films like The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Monuments Men, The Ides of March, Intolerable Cruelty, and Good Night, and Good Luck.