Keira Knightley to star in Apple TV+ period drama The Essex Serpent

Deadline

Two months after making her biggest commitment to television with the Hulu limited series The Other Typist, two-time Oscar nominee Knightley has signed on to star in another TV series. Like The Other Typist, the 1893-set The Essex Serpent is based on a novel from the past decade. Written by Mrs Wilson writer Anna Symon and directed by Clio Barnard, The Essex Serpent follows "newly widowed Cora, played by Knightley, who, having being released from an abusive marriage, relocates from Victorian London to the small village of Aldwinter in Essex, intrigued by a local superstition that a mythical creature known as the Essex Serpent has returned to the area," per Deadline. Author Sarah Perry’s novel The Essex Serpent was named Book of the Year by the British Book Awards after its release in 2016.