Two True Blood Alumni Join WGN’s ‘Underground’

Today WGN announced their latest original series, Underground, which will co-star True Blood alumni Christopher Meloni (Roman – season 5) and Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Nicole – seasons 6 & 7).

Underground follows a group of slaves who plan a daring escape from a Georgia plantation to cross 600 miles to freedom, aided along the way by a secret abolitionist couple running a station on the Underground Railroad, as they evade those tasked with bringing them back, dead or alive.

Smollett-Bell plays Rosalee, a shy house slave with a powerful inner strength and courage; Aldis Hodge is Noah, a brave and clever slave on the plantation with dreams of freedom and a dangerous plan to escape; Meloni is August, a secretive mercenary who walks a tightrope between survival and morality; Jessica De Gouw is Elizabeth, a socialite who shares her husband’s abolitionist ideals.

The series was created and written by Misha Green and Joe Pokaski (Heroes), who also serve as executive producers with Goldsman from Weed Road Pictures, along with Tory Tunnell and Joby Harold from Safehouse Pictures. Anthony Hemingway (Treme) will direct the series’ first two episodes.

Production is set to begin this spring for a 2016 premiere.