The Apple TV+ limited series The Savant has found its lead with Jessica Chastain, as first reported by Variety. The story is based on a real woman who was reported about in a Cosmopolitan article in 2019 who, known by the same name as the title of the upcoming series, infiltrated online hate groups to stop violence from happening.
Melissa James (Anatomy of a Scandal) will be the showrunner, along with serving writing and executive producing duties for the streamer’s series. Matthew Heineman (A Private War) is set to direct while executive producing. While starring in the Apple series, Jessica Chastain will executive produce. Kelly Carmichael and Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Jessica Giles will executive produce. Brian Madden will produce. The writer of the article that started this story, Andrew Stanley, will consult.
Jessica Chastain lands a leading role in The Savant, an Apple TV+ limited series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRuVWHnQlV8
The mysterious woman has been going around online to report on people whose hate speech on social media will turn into real-world violence. In one case, she saw disturbing posts from a 29-year-old named Michael Finton. His Myspace page became grimmer and grimmer with radical views being shared and videos of actual murders, particularly from Islamic terrorists in the Middle East. After contacting the FBI, an operation had Finton think he and an accomplice (an undercover FBI agent) move a van toward a federal building to blow up. When he tried to trigger the explosives that actually were not in the van, he was arrested.
Jessica Chastain has made her impact on film, and in recent years, she has signed onto more TV projects, like this upcoming Apple series. On the film side, she won an Oscar for her performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye and was nominated for Zero Dark Thirty and The Help. Other notable films have been Molly’s Game, A Most Violent Year, Interstellar, and It Chapter Two. On the TV side, she has starred in Scenes from a Marriage and George & Tammy.