“The Leftovers” fans, mark your calendars for April 30, 2021 as that’s when Kevin Garvey, aka Justin Theroux, is returning to your television screens. Theroux plays Allie Fox in the new Apple TV Plus drama series “The Mosquito Coast,” based on Theroux’s uncle Paul Theroux‘s 1981 novel of the same name. (Watch the trailer above.) The actor was cruelly snubbed at the Emmys for HBO’s beloved sci-fi drama, though he later won a pair for producing ABC’s variety special “Live in Front of a Studio Audience.” Will Theroux finally earn a Best Drama Actor nomination thanks to “The Mosquito Coast”?
The new show follows the lives of the Fox family, who are forced to flee to Mexico to escape the US government after Allie, a controversial idealist and inventor, gets into trouble. Melissa George plays Theroux’s wife and his children are portrayed by Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman. Apple, which is on an awards role thanks to “Ted Lasso” and “The Morning Show,” describes the project as a “gripping adventure and layered character drama.”
In the preview video, Theroux delivers an intense, Emmy-worthy speech as Allie explains to his daughter, “We have a problem. You know the kind of problem that you think, okay, first glance, that looks pretty bad, so I just sit down and think about how I might be able to figure a way out of it? We don’t have that kind of problem … We need to go.”
The first two episodes will premiere on April 30, followed by new ones every Friday for a total of seven. Creator Neil Cross of “Luther” fame executive produces the project alongside Rupert Wyatt, who directs the first two episodes. Other producers include actor Justin Theroux, author Paul Theroux, Edward L. McDonnell, Alan Gasmer, Peter Jaysen and Bob Bookman.
“The Mosquito Coast” was previously adapted into a 1986 feature film directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford as Allie. Even though the movie was a box office bomb, Ford told Entertainment Weekly he was “glad” he did the project, adding, “If there was a fault with the film, it was that it didn’t fully enough embrace the language of the book.”
