Jennifer Jason Leigh and Hugo Weaving to play Benedict Cumberbatch’s mom and dad for Showtime

Variety reports that Showtime’s new Benedict Cumberbatch project, Melrose, has added Jennifer Jason Leigh and Hugo Weaving to its cast as the parents of Cumberbatch’s aristocratic title character. Based off Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, the series will track the life of St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical stand-in, as he attempts to survive alcoholism, heroin, and other perils of the life of the inherited and idle rich.

But in case Hugo Weaving being cast as his father didn’t clue you in, Melrose first has to get through a pretty rough childhood before he can even get to all the fun rock bottom stuff. (Variety describes the father as “horribly abusive,” and Leigh’s mother character as quietly condoning his behavior.) Leigh comes to the part off of a current role on Showtime’s Twin Peaks, while Weaving recently co-starred as a significantly more supportive father figure in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge.

Melrose will have a five-episode, limited series run on Showtime, with each installment covering one of the five Patrick Melrose books.

 
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