He’s coming to the end of his tour of duty as conflicted and complex meth cooker / slacker party animal Jessie Pinkman on the acclaimed Breaking Bad, so it makes sense that Aaron Paul is looking towards potential future work. He’s now in negotiations to take the lead role in HBO drama The Missionary.
It’s not an adaptation of the 1982 Michael Palin comedy, but instead aims to follow the fictional tale of an American missionary in 1960s Berlin who becomes tangled up with the CIA.
The Interpreter’s Charles Randolph dreamt up the concept, and he’s working with a team that includes author Malcolm Gladwell, producer Stephen Levinson and actor / producer Mark Wahlberg.
Though HBO has only given the show a pilot order so far, the talent involved has us thinking it’ll be in with a solid shot at going to series, especially since Wahlberg and Levinson have produced four shows for the cable channel so far: Entourage, In Treatment, How To Make It In America and Boardwalk Empire.
One slight issue might be that it has to go up against another Cold War era spy drama at the channel, with Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in The Americans, about KGB spies working deep undercover in the US, but if it comes down to the actors having to duke it out, our money's on Pinkman. Did you see - SPOILER - what he did to poor Gale?