CBS Studios announced the additions of Emily Beecham and Clémence Poésy to the cast of King & Conqueror, an upcoming period drama series set in 11th-century England.
Beecham (1899) will play Edith Swan-neck, “the wife of Harold Godwinson who has never quite found her place in Harold’s family,” the character description reads. “She married Harold for love and protection, but never expected her husband to end up fighting for the English crown.”
Poésy (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon) will star as Matilda, the wife of William of Normandy. According to the press release, Matilda was “raised in the cutthroat world of the royal court, she has realized that in order to succeed she has to be more devious, more ruthless and more bloody than her male opponents.”
Beecham and Poésy join a cast that includes James Norton as Harold of Wessex and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William of Normandy, a.k.a. William the Conqueror.
What to Expect in King & Conqueror?
“King & Conqueror is the story of a clash that defined the future of a country — and a continent — for a thousand years, the roots of which stretch back decades and extend out through a pair of interconnected family dynasties, struggling for power across two countries and a raging sea,” the series synopsis reads. “Harold of Wessex and William of Normandy were two men destined to meet at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; two allies with no design on the British throne, who found themselves forced by circumstance and personal obsession into a war for possession of its crown.”
King and Conqueror is created and executive produced by Michael Robert Johnson (Sherlock Holmes). Norton will executive produce through Rabbit Track Pictures with Kitty Kaletsky. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, an executive producer on the series, will direct an episode. Baltasar Kormákur is set to executive produce and direct the premiere episode.
Additional executive producers include Robert Taylor for The Development Partnership, Dave Clarke and Richard Halliwell for Shepherd Content, and Ed Clarke, Robert Jones, and CBS Studios’ Lindsey Martin.
Production for the eight-episode series is expected to begin shortly in Iceland. BBC One and BBC iPlayer will broadcast the series in the United Kingdom. Paramount Global Content Distribution will distribute King & Conqueror outside the U.K.
