Penny Dreadful: Harry Treadway to Play Frankenstein

Showtime has announced that upcoming psychosexual thriller Penny Dreadful has added Harry Treadway (The Lone Ranger) to its cast. He’s set to portray iconic literary character Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the eight-episode first season, though no character details about the Penny Dreadful version of the character have been released as of yet.

From John Logan (Skyfall), Sam Mendes (American Beauty), and Pippa Harris (Revolutionary Road), Penny Dreadful centers on several well-known literary characters converging in Victorian London, their origin stories highlighting the series’ central themes of alienation, loneliness, and what it means to be considered a monster. Additionally, The Impossible director Juan Antonio Bayona will helm the first two episodes of the series.

In addition to his role in the Johnny Depp-Armie Hammer actioner, Treadway has appeared on the likes of Truckers, Meadowlands, and The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall. He joins a cast that includes the likes of Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down) as an American drawn into the darker corners of Victorian London; Eva Green (Casino Royale) as a complex beauty who is more dangerous than she lets on; Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights) as an African explorer who finds himself in London while on a quest; Reeve Carney (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark) as mesmerizingly beautiful Dorian Gray; and Rory Kinnear (Southcliffe), who will be playing a character currently only being described as “hauntingly intense.”

Production on Penny Dreadful is scheduled to begin this fall in London for a 2014 premiere. The series does not currently have a concrete premiere date and likely won’t until Showtime’s January TCA session, where the network reveals its plans for the coming year.

Does Penny Dreadful sound like something you would watch? Who else would you like to see join the cast? What other literary characters would you want to see pop up?