Joanne Whalley Joins Irons in 'The Borgias' for Showtime

Actress Joanne Whalley has joined the cast of the upcoming Showtime series 'The Borgias,' The Hollywood Reporter reports. Whalley will play Vanossa, a former courtesan and the mother of the Borgia children. She joins the previously announced Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, Colm Feore, Francois Arnaud, David Oakes, and Holliday Grainger.

Whalley's film and television credits include 'A Kind of Loving,' 'Scandal,' 'Scarlett,' 'Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis,' and 'The Virgin Queen.'  She has appeared on stage in POOR BEAST IN THE RAIN.

As previously announced, Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons will star in the epic drama series as Rodrigo Borgia, the cunning, manipulative patriarch of The Borgia family who ascends to the highest circles of power within Renaissance-era Italy.

Academy Award winning director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) will create and executive produce the series as well as direct the first two episodes. Veteran film and television writer/producer Michael Hirst, who created, wrote and executive produced SHOWTIME's original series The Tudors, will serve as executive producer/writer.

THE BORGIAS will be a complex, unvarnished portrait of one of history's most intriguing and infamous dynastic families. The series begins as the family's patriarch Rodrigo (Jeremy Irons), becomes Pope, propelling him, his two Machiavellian sons Cesare and Juan, and his scandalously beautiful daughter, Lucrezia, to become the most powerful and influential family of the Italian Renaissance. And all that power and influence eventually leads to their demise. As Machiavelli once said about his friends, the Borgias, "Politics have no relation to morals."

'The Bordias' is set to premiere in early 2011.

 

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