Neil Jordan’s latest foray into TV drama sees him follow up The Borgias with another world of wealth, luxury and depravity. A still from Riviera has landed, offering a first look at its star Julia Stiles.
Fresh from another encounter with Jason Bourne in Jason Bourne, Stiles is centrepiecing the Sky Atlantic drama. She plays Georgina, a Midwesterner who was married to billionaire and art collector Constantine Clios until he was unhelpfully blown to bits on a yacht belonging to an oligarch.
This deadly deed is the catalyst for the gutsy American to delve into her husband's own shady dealings. Inevitably, she finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into a potentially hostile and morally corrupt world.
"Georgina is the heroine of the piece,” explains Stiles. "The show takes you into the hidden world of the super-rich. It's glamorous, it's unpredictable. All is not what it seems."
Co-starring are Adrian Lester as an art dealer called Robert Carver, Iwan Rheon, AKA Game Of Thrones’ Ramsay Bolton (boo! Hiss! etc) as one of Constantine's sons, and Chocolat’s Lena Olin. The latter is Constantine’s ex-wife, Irina, and presumably a key to helping Georgina unlock her dead husband’s murky past.
Co-written by Jordan and Booker Prize winner John Banville, Riviera will be airing in the UK, Ireland and Italy in 2017. It joins a tasty Sky Atlantic line-up that also includes The Young Pope and the new series of Gomorrah.