Screen Actors Guild® Award winner Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) has joined the cast of the new six-part series Guerrilla in the lead role of Jas Mitra which is set to air on Sky Atlantic and SHOWTIME next year.

Guerrilla, which is part of Sky's growing portfolio of original drama, centers on a couple, Jas and Marcus (casting to be revealed soon), whose passion propels them into making the leap from political activism to radical militancy. Academy Award® winner John Ridley (American Crime) will write, direct and executive produce the series. Golden Globe® winner Idris Elba (Luther, Beasts of No Nation) will co-star and serve as an executive producer through his Green Door Pictures. Ridley will write the majority of the episodes and will direct the first two and the finale, with Sam Miller taking on the other episodes.

Pinto will play the role of Jas Mitra, a passionate and politically driven individual. As a member of a newly-formed radical underground cell, Jas helps liberate a charismatic convict from prison in an effort to lead the street fight against social injustice in 1971 London.

Freida Pinto, commented: 'I'm thrilled to be working with an artist like John Ridley who has written these compelling scripts filled with thoughtful and complicated characters.'

Guerrilla is a love story set against the backdrop of one of the most politically explosive times in U.K. history. It tells the story of a politically active couple whose relationship and values are tested when they liberate a political prisoner and form a radical underground cell in 1970s London. Their ultimate target becomes the Black Power Desk, a true-life, secretive counter-intelligence unit within Special Branch dedicated to crushing all forms of black activism. Whilst the series is set against a background of social and political activism, at its heart Guerrilla is about a relationship under pressure, and the reality that for any couple there comes a point when the choices they make have real and lasting consequences.

Along with Ridley and Elba, the executive producers will be Patrick Spence and Katie Swinden for Fifty Fathoms, Tracy Underwood for ABC Signature and Michael McDonald for Stearns Castle. The series is set to begin production in London late this summer, and will be a co-production between Fifty Fathoms and ABC Signature.

Guerrilla joins 11 original drama series already on air or set to air over the next couple of years on Sky Atlantic and Sky 1 in the UK & Ireland. These include returning series Penny Dreadful, Fortitude, Agatha Raisin alongside new series The Young Pope, Hooten & The Lady, Tin Star, Delicious, Riveria, Jamestown and The Last Dragonslayer.

It has been a very successful year for Sky original drama, which includes BAFTA nominations for The Last Panthers and The Enfield Haunting, and record-breaking audiences for Sky 1's Stan Lee's Lucky Man.

For further information, please contact:

Alex Henderson

Sky Content PR

alex.henderson@sky.uk

Notes to editors:

Internationally-acclaimed actress Freida Pinto is best known to audiences for her award-winning role in the Oscar®-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. A former model, Pinto was discovered by director Danny Boyle and cast in her first feature to play the female lead 'Latika.' Pinto was honored with a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award win for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for her work in the film. Her additional feature credits include Jungle Book, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Immortals, Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups, Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and the upcoming indie Love Sonia shooting now in India.

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Sky plc published this content on 28 June 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 28 June 2016 12:05:07 UTC.

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