James Cromwell Joins the Cast of Starz’s Counterpart

Starz has announced today that Emmy-winner and Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell (American Horror Story, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Young Pope) has been cast in a recurring guest role as “Yanek” for Season 2 of the STARZ Original series Counterpart.

Appearing in a multi-episode arc, Cromwell’s character Yanek is the enigmatic warden of Echo, an underground facility where Howard (J.K. Simmons) finds himself fighting for his life.

Season two of the critically-acclaimed Starz Original series “Counterpart” began production in Berlin in February. The 10-episode second season of the one-hour scripted drama is from creator Justin Marks, Gilbert Films, and Anonymous Content, with MRC serving as the studio for the series. Season two of the espionage spy-fi thriller is currently in production in Los Angeles and will complete production in Berlin later this year.

Born in Los Angeles but raised in New York and educated at Middlebury College and Carnegie-Mellon University, James Cromwell made his television debut in 1974 on The Rockford Files and went on to land a recurring role as Archie Bunker’s friend Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Farmer Arthur Hoggett in Babe and won an Emmy award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his role as Arthur Arden in American Horror Story. Cromwell has been nominated for multiple Screen Actors Guild and Emmy awards.

Cromwell joins Academy Award-winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, The Accountant, Juno) who plays “Howard Silk,” Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, Hyde Park on Hudson, Manhattan) as “Emily Burton Silk,” Harry Lloyd (The Theory of Everything, Jane Eyre, Manhattan) as “Peter Quayle,” Nicholas Pinnock (Captain America: The First Avenger, Marcella) as “Ian Shaw,” Nazanin Boniadi (Homeland, Ben-Hur, Hotel Mumbai) as “Clare,” and Sara Serraiocco (Salvo, Cloro, Worldly Girl) as “Baldwin.”

Counterpart is about a mysterious world hidden beneath the surface of our everyday existence. Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) is a lowly cog in the bureaucratic machinery of a Berlin-based United Nations spy agency. When Howard discovers that his organization safeguards the secret of a crossing into a parallel dimension, he is thrust into a shadow world of intrigue, danger and double-cross… where the only man he can trust is his near-identical counterpart from this parallel world. The show explores themes of identity, fate and lost love, posing the eternal question, “what if our lives could have been different?”

Created, written and executive produced by Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), Counterpart Season 2 is also executive produced by Gary Gilbert (La La Land), Jordan Horowitz (La La Land), Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), and Keith Redmon (The Revenant), and Bard Dorros (Spotlight) with Anonymous Content. MRC serves as the studio for the series.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)