ALL IN THE FAMILY

Florence Pugh Will Break Bad For Netflix and Zoe Kazan’s ‘East of Eden’ Miniseries

The Steinbeck novel is best known for the 1955 film adaptation, starring James Dean and directed by Elia Kazan—a.k.a. Zoe’s grandpa.

It’s Florence Pugh’s world, and we’re all just living in it. The Academy Award-nominated actress, whose roster of high-profile upcoming projects includes Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling and the hotly anticipated sequel to Dune, has added another buzzy project to her list: Netflix’s adaptation of East of Eden.

The new take on John Steinbeck’s classic novel of the same name, in which Pugh stars, will be a limited series penned and executive produced by Zoe Kazan. Steinbeck’s 1952 magnum opus tells the interwoven stories of two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks, living in California’s Salinas Valley from the time of the Civil War to the end of World War II. The Hamiltons are a family of Irish immigrants, and the Trasks are a wealthy brood helmed by patriarch Adam.

Kazan’s take on the ambitious novel will focus on the members of the Trask family, in particular, and how they are shaped by monumental historical events. Pugh will play Cathy Ames, the novel’s “antiheroine,” as Kazan describes her in a statement to Deadline. Cathy is the infamously menacing future wife of Adam Trask, making Kazan’s read on the character quite a … unique one.

It’s especially fitting for Kazan to tackle the beloved family drama: Her grandfather, Elia Kazan, directed the 1955 film version. The elder Kazan’s film was a partial adaptation of the latter half of the source material, focusing on Adam and Kate (née Cathy) Trask’s sons, Cal and Aron. The iconic movie earned several Academy Award nods and is best known for starring James Dean as Cal in his first major acting role.

“I fell in love with East of Eden when I first read it, in my teens,” Zoe Kazan told Deadline. “Since then, adapting Steinbeck’s novel—the great, sprawling, three-generational entirety of it—has been my dream.”

East of Eden is still in the early stages of development, as producers look to cast the rest of the Trask family and find a director for the project. Pugh is executive producing alongside Kazan.

An actress herself, Kazan has appeared in movies and shows like The Big Sick and The Deuce. She’s slated to star as Jodi Kantor, one of the reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault story, in the movie She Saidlater this year. She has written two feature films, Ruby Sparks and Wildlife, but East of Eden will be her first TV writing credit.

Jordan Julian

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