While the CW has gone with a familiar face for their Beauty, in casting Kristin Kreuk, ABC is giving Irish actor Ruth Bradley what could be her first American TV role, should things go well for ABC’s Beauty and the Beast pilot.
Deadline reports that Bradley (Irish series Love/Hate, UK series Primeval) is set to play the female lead in their Beauty and the Beast drama pilot. Bradley joins Scottish singer/actor Darius Campbell, who is set to play the beast.
In ABC’s adaptation of the classic tale, Bradley’s character Grace learns she has a connection with the mysterious beast, who is also a mercenary bodyguard.
While neither Campbell nor Bradley are household names on this side of the pond (yet, anyway), we will get to see Bradley on ABC soon enough. She’s set to play a role in the ITV miniseries Titanic, which just so happens to be airing on ABC next month. The miniseries is set to air in the U.S., the U.K. and a number of other countries to coincide with the centenary of the ship’s ill-fated voyage.
As for Beauty and the Beast, given the success of Once Upon a Time, added to the recent interest in this particular story (with the CW’s own adaptation in development, the recent re-release of Disney’s animated film into theaters, and another big screen adaptation in the works), the chances of this pilot getting picked up seem high. But we’ll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.
