Jessica Chastain is better known as “the Savant” in her new Apple TV+ series, which released a trailer on Tuesday.
The Savant follows Chastain as an undercover investigator who infiltrates online hate groups in an effort to stop domestic extremists before they act. The gripping first look (below) shows Chastain as mom by day, terrorist-chaser by night. “Snipers, bombings, ambushes… we’re on the verge of serious violence,” she says when confiding to a colleague about the man she’s hunting, played by Pablo Schreiber.
“Do you think if you engage with terrible things, you’re daring even worse things to happen?” she asks.
The limited eight-episode series is also executive produced by Chastain. The series launches with the first two episodes on Friday, Sept. 26, followed by a weekly release.
The cast also includes Nnamdi Asomugha, Cole Doman, Jordana Spiro, Trinity Lee Shirley, Toussaint Francois Battiste and guest star Schreiber.
The Savant has been in the works for more than two years. Andrea Stanley, who wrote the Cosmopolitan feature on which the series is based, is a consultant on the series. Her August 2019 piece, “Is It Possible to Stop a Mass Shooting Before It Happens?” detailed a woman known as “The Savant,” an investigator whose job is to take down the country’s most violent men before they can carry out large-scale attacks.
Hailing from Fifth Season, The Savant is also executive produced by Kelly Carmichael for Chastain’s Freckle Films, Alan Poul, showrunner Melissa James Gibson and Matthew Heineman, along with David Levine and Garrett Kemble for Anonymous Content.