From a media release:
After an extensive global casting search, Northwood Entertainment, Netflix and CBC today announced that young rising star Amybeth McNulty has been cast as the precocious and imaginative Anne Shirley in the highly anticipated new dramatic television series ANNE (8 x 60). Based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s timeless classic novel Anne of Green Gables, ANNE began production in Prince Edward Island in September and has now moved to Ontario, Canada.
Fourteen-year-old Irish Canadian actress Amybeth McNulty was raised in Donegal, Ireland. She started acting at the early age of six, and has appeared in numerous productions on stage and on screen including in the feature film Morgan starring Kate Mara and in the television series Agatha Raisin for Sky and The Sparticle Mystery for CBBC in the UK. A trained singer, Amybeth also starred in London’s acclaimed Regent’s Park production of The Sound of Music.
Also starring as the siblings who adopt Anne, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, are Tony and four-time BAFTA nominee Geraldine James OBE (Sherlock Holmes, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and multiple award-winning veteran Canadian stage and television actor, Governor General Award recipient R.H. Thomson (Chloe, The Englishman’s Boy).
ANNE is a coming-of-age story about an outsider who, against all odds and numerous challenges, fights for love and acceptance and her place in the world. The series centers on a young orphaned girl in the late 1890s who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an aging sister and brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne will transform their lives and eventually the entire small town in which they live with her unique spirit, fierce intellect and brilliant imagination.
While the new series will honour the foundation of the novel held as a Canadian treasure and global phenomenon (Anne of Green Gables has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide), ANNE will also chart new territory. Anne and the rest of the characters will experience adventures reflecting timeless and topical issues including themes of identity, feminism, bullying and prejudice.
As previously announced, award-winning Director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, McFarland USA, Zookeeper’s Wife) is helming the two-hour premiere episode.
Three-time Emmy® Award and Golden Globe winner Moira Walley-Beckett (Breaking Bad, Flesh & Bone) is penning the entire first season of the series and serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside executive producer Miranda de Pencier (Beginners, Thanks for Sharing), under her Northwood Entertainment banner.
Alison Owen (Saving Mr. Banks) and Debra Hayward (Bridget Jones Diary, Les Misérables) are also attached to executive produce and Susan Murdoch will produce.
Something about this kind of excites me. I was so against that other remake but this one seems different somehow.