Fans have been anxiously waiting for the return of the hit Netflix future cyberpunk series Altered Carbon and now Deadline reports that Will Yun Lee is set to return to the series, albeit in a very secretive and recurring role for the second season.
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It was previously announced that Anthony Mackie (Avengers: Infinity War) would be taking over the role of Takeshi Kovacs from Joel Kinnaman. Kovacs is a former soldier who became a revolutionary, then a mercenary for hire. Aggressively independent, Kovacs swears allegiance to no man or woman except one: Quellcrist Falconer. His undying quest to reconnect with her spans multiple centuries, planets and sleeves.
Lela Loren (Power) also has signed on to portray the series regular role of Danica Harlan, the charming and ambitious governor of the planet Harlan’s World who struggles to balance the full-fledged support of the people but with the uneasy grip on the political players around her. The actress has already completed production on her role.
Lee originally starred in the first season as the original Kovacs, who existed in his original body over 200 years before the start of the series and whose spirit has gone on through various bodies entitled sleeves with an alien technology known as a cortical stack.
Renee Elise Goldsberry (One Life to Live) will play Quellcrist Falconer. A fierce revolutionary leader with a deep bond to Takeshi Kovacs, Quell is primarily driven by her desire to reset the balance between life and death. Simone Missick (Luke Cage) will take on Trepp, an expert bounty hunter. A morally grey character, Trepp is known for her ability to track down anyone in the Settled Worlds, for the right price.
On the A.I. front, Chris Conner (American Crime Story) will return as Poe, a centuries-old, highly-evolved A.I. He’s fiercely loyal to Kovacs, with a constant desire to understand what it means to be human. Dina Shihibi (Daredevil) is taking on Dig 301, an out-of-work A.I. programmed to assist human archeologists who finds a new purpose when she meets Poe.
Additionally, Torben Liebrecht (Operation Finale) will portray Colonel Ivan Carrera, the dogged leader of a Protectorate Special Forces who’s on the hunt for Takeshi Kovacs. Finally, James Santo will play Tanaseda Hideki, a centuries-old Yakuza boss who controls organized crime on the planet of Harlan’s World and shares a history with the show’s main character.
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The eight-episode second season of Altered Carbon, produced by Skydance Television, will see Kalogridis returning as co-showrunner and executive producer alongside Alison Schapker (Alias, Almost Human, Fringe). David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Marcy Ross will executive produce for Skydance, with James Middleton (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) also serving as executive producer.
Based on the classic science fiction novels by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon is an intriguing story of murder, love, sex, and betrayal, set more than 300 years in the future. In season one — currently available to stream on Netflix — society has been transformed by new technology: consciousness can be digitized; human bodies are interchangeable; death is no longer permanent. Takeshi Kovacs is the lone surviving soldier in a group of elite interstellar warriors who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order. His mind was imprisoned, “on ice”, for centuries until Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), an impossibly wealthy, long-lived man, offers Kovacs the chance to live again. In exchange, Kovacs has to solve a murder… that of Bancroft himself.
