Glenn Close Joins Apple TV Plus Thriller ‘Tehran’ as Series Regular

By Amy Spiro, Variety

Glenn Close is joining hit Israeli thriller “Tehran.”

Close, who has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, will be a series regular in the upcoming second season of the show, which aired on Apple TV Plus last summer and has become a global hit for the platform. The show originally premiered on Israel’s KAN public broadcaster last June. Variety understands that Apple TV Plus picked up the title from distributor Cineflix Rights as an acquisition, but following its success for the streamer, boarded the show as a co-producer.

Close is slated to play the role of Marjan Montazeri, a British woman living in Tehran, according to Apple. The first season of the series told the story of Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), a young Mossad agent undercover on a top secret mission in the heart of Tehran.

The series also stars Shaun Toub as Faraz, the head of internal investigations with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Shervin Alenabi as Milad, a young Iranian dissident and hacker who gets caught up in Tamar’s web of deception.

The first season of the show — which is created by Moshe Zonder, Omri Shenhar, Dana Eden and Maor Kohn, and directed by Daniel Syrkin — was filmed in Athens, and brought together a diverse cast and crew of Israelis, Iranians, Greeks and more. Filming of the second season, which will air in 2022, is slated to begin soon and will also reportedly take place in Greece, despite an ongoing legal dispute over using funds allocated to the Israeli public broadcaster to produce a show overseas.

Shenhar is a writer on the show alongside Zonder. Executive producers are Eden and Shula Spiegel for Donna and Shula Productions, along with Zonder, Shenhar, Syrkin, Alon Aranya for Paper Plane Productions, Julien Leroux for Paper Entertainment, Peter Emerson for Cineflix Studios, and Eldad Koblenz for Kan 11. “Tehran” is distributed internationally by Cineflix Rights.

Close has been nominated for eight Oscars across four decades, most recently for her role in “Hillbilly Elegy.” She has three Emmys and three Tony Awards. The actor recently completed filming on Apple TV Plus film “Swan Song,” alongside Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris.