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EXCLUSIVE: Emma Laird will star in Mint, the upcoming BBC crime family drama, which is Scrapper director Charlotte Regan’s first TV series.
Deadline can reveal Mayor Of Kingstown and The Brutalist actress Laird’s casting along with that of Sam Riley (Firebrand), Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Lindsay Duncan (Sherwood) and Ben Coyle-Larner, also known as musician Loyle Carner.
The casting news comes as production kicks off on the eight-part series. It is being made by Conclave producer House Productions, which is backed by BBC Studios, alongside Jolyon Symonds’ Fearless Minds, which is a joint venture with Banijay.
Regan created and wrote Mint and will direct. It is billed as darkly comic and unconventional drama about a crime family’s inner life.
At the centre of Mint is Shannon (Laird), the naïve and fiercely romantic daughter of the area’s dominant crime family. Shannon is desperately searching for love in the shadow of her gangster father, Dylan (Riley), devoted mum Cat (Fraser), older brother Luke (Gribben) and the indomitable family matriarch, grandma Ollie (Duncan).
Having grown up protected within the surreal, yet violent confines of the ‘family business’, things are shaken up when Arran – played by acting newcomer Coyle-Larner – arrives on the scene.
From left: Sam Riley, Laura Fraser, Lindsay Duncan, Ben Coyle-Larner and Lewis Gribben
BBC
Regan paid tribute to her cast: “I had a little cry the other day thinking about how incredible this cast are. Absolute emotional wreck. But I honestly can’t imagine these characters being brought into the world by better human beings. Every single one of them is going to smash it and I feel so grateful to have them all onboard.”
The series was commissioned by Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, and is filming in Glasgow, Scotland. “I’m over the moon that Charlotte has chosen to work with the BBC on her first TV series,” she said when the greenlight was announced. In the UK Mint will be on BBC One and iPlayer. BBC Studios is across international sales.
Fearless Minds is the banner behind the movie The Critic starring Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton and which premiered at TIFF. Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell’s film and TV label House, meanwhile, scored a BAFTA nom for another BBC drama that it produces, Sherwood, this week.
