Billie Piper’s Going to Star In a Victorian-Era Horror Drama About Iconic Literary Villains

Before I get into anything else: The name of Billie Piper‘s character is Brona Croft. My mind went to My Little Pony places and Lara Croft places at the same time, and now I have a headache.

We’ve written about Showtime’s upcoming Penny Dreadful a few times before: Basically, it’s a “psychosexual horror series” set in Victorian London and featuring several iconic horror characters, like Dr. Frankenstein and Dorian Gray. So like Once Upon a Time but with blood and sex. Van Helsing but hopefully not bad. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but not inspiring Alan Moore‘s eternal hate. You get the idea.

Piper’s character, who according to SuperHeroHype is one of the stars of the show, is an Irish immigrant on the run from “a dark and sordid past.” Also in the show are the always-amazing Eva Green and Helen McCrory (Doctor Who connection: She played the Queen alien-fish-vampire in “The Vampires of Venice”). Other cast members include Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton, Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, Harry Treadaway as Dr. Frankenstein, Rory Kinnear, Simon Russell Beale, and Misfits‘ Danny Sapani as “Sembene, an African warrior.” Please don’t be a racial stereotype, please don’t be a racial stereotype, please don’t be a racial stereotype…

The show’s being written and executive produced by three-time Oscar nominee John Logan, who wrote Hugo, The Aviator, Gladiator, and Skyfall and executive produced by director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty) and his producing partner Pippa Harris. Juan Antonio Bayona (The Impossible) is directing the first two episodes.

That is quite the pedigree, both in front of and behind the camera. My brain is stuck on “Billie Piper, Eva Green, and Helen McCrory are all going to be on one show, oh my God,” but the fact that it’s history-based horror is getting me interested as well. Filming for Penny Dreadful starts this fall, and it’ll debut on Showtime some time next year. Plenty of time to find someone with a password to Showtime Anytime, the network’s HBO GO equivalent. Umm… I mean plenty of time to save up your money and subscribe to Showtime. Something tells me this’ll be a show you want to watch.

(via: SuperHeroHype, photo from BBC)

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?