Hamilton star Daveed Diggs to lead Snowpiercer show

Whatever Daveed Diggs do in Monticello now includes starring in the Snowpiercer television show.

TNT announced Wednesday that the Tony-winning Hamilton star will lead the network’s adaptation of Bong Joon Ho’s original film, which starred Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, and Octavia Spencer. Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange) will direct the show’s pilot and act as an executive producer along with writer and showrunner Josh Friedman (Avatar 4, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Tomorrow Studios’ Marty Adelstein (Prison Break, Teen Wolf), and Becky Clements (Good Behavior, Last Man Standing). Joon Ho, Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae-hun, and Dooho Choi are also executive producers.

Set seven years after an apocalyptic ice age leaves Earth as a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer will focus on the survivors who “inhabit a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe,” per a press release. Diggs will play Layton Well, “a prisoner barely surviving the harsh conditions in the tail end of the train. A quiet thinker who spends his days sniffing the industrial-waste-turned-drug Chronole and tending to his cage full of rats, Layton becomes a reluctant participant in a struggle that could upend life on the train.”

Diggs originated the roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton and won a Tony award for his efforts. The actor has been on a hot streak since then, appearing on Netflix’s The Get Down and ABC’s Black-ish, among other projects. He’ll also costar in episodes of Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (out Friday).

TNT made a flurry of moves on Wednesday, ordering non-fiction shows from Michael Moore (Michael Moore Live from the Apocalypse) and Sarah Jessica Parker and Morgan Spurlock (Who Run the World? with Refinery29).

In addition, TNT is developing a night of original science-fiction programming with Ridley Scott. “Initial plans call for the block to serve as a showcase for hour-long series, short-form programs and other formats to be developed in collaboration with Scott,” the network noted in a release.

Other shows in the works from TNT: a pilot called Highland starring actress-comedian Margaret Cho.