“American Gods”: STARZ Series Announces Casting

(Editor’s Note:  Another piece from Gwen “Gwendles” Reza, our resident Neil Gaiman expert.)

A leading role has been cast in the much anticipated television adaptation on STARZ of Neil Gaiman’s award winning novel, “American Gods”.

The central character of Shadow Moon will be played by Ricky Whittle whom you may have seen as Lincoln in The CW’s series The 100. This casting is a great relief personally, as a fan of the book I can tell you that getting this casting right is essential to the tv shows success.

American Gods is a story about Shadow Moon and his travels with a shady character named Mr. Wednesday (actually the old Norse God Odin, in his American form). But it’s also about more than that. America is famous for being a country of immigrants, coming to these shores and bringing our beliefs and old gods with us. These gods, just like all of us have made new lives for themselves in this country. The book is incredible source material to draw from, and many fans are relieved that author, Neil Gaiman is involved with the production.

It was a particular fear of mine that the role of Shadow would be cast incorrectly, due to his ethnic ambiguity in the book. It does however state several times that shadow is dark skinned, he is described as looking like “coffee with cream”, and this casting is spot on. While he may need to beef up his arms a bit for the role, Ricky Whittle seems to be the perfect actor to bring this Shadow to life.

American Gods will be adapted for the small screen by Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and Michael Green and they are sure to make this Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Award(s) winning masterpiece in to some excellent television indeed.

We’ll let you know as more information becomes available.