Leslie Mann to Star in New Amazon Series, The Power

Leslie Mann will be starring in The Power, the Amazon-adapted TV series based on Naomi Alderman’s book, the streamer announced Thursday.

Leslie Mann has joined the cast of The Power, the upcoming series from Naomi Alderman, brought to you by an all-female writers’ room
Mann will play an ambitious politician in a world where, without warning, teenage girls have the power to electrocute people at will. pic.twitter.com/oc9IFGqGbd

— Amazon Studios (@AmazonStudios) October 31, 2019

The series will be produced as a 10-episode thriller/drama based on Alderman’s 2016 feminist sci-fi book of the same name, in which all teenage girls around the world have the power to electrocute people at will. Mann will be playing the role of charming and ambitious politician Margot Cleary-Lopez in the series.

Amazon’s synopsis reads:

The world of The Power is our world, but for one twist of nature. Suddenly, and without warning, all teenage girls in the world develop the power to electrocute people at will. It’s hereditary, it’s inbuilt, and it can’t be taken away from them. Coming alive to the thrill of pure power: the ability to hurt or even kill by releasing electrical jolts from their fingertips, they rapidly learn they can awaken the Power in older women. Soon enough nearly every woman in the world can do it. And then everything is different.

The subversive, multi-stranded narrative follows a series of characters including Allie, a vulnerable American foster kid who reinvents herself as a faith leader; Roxy, the daughter of a London crime boss, who revels in her new abilities; Tunde, a Nigerian journalist reporting on seismic global change; and Margot Cleary —Lopez (Leslie Mann), Mayor of Seattle, loving wife and doting mother to three kids. At least that’s what her official campaign website would tell you.

Margot is an American politician on the rise and until now, not only a woman in a man’s world, but one with a questionable taste in jackets according to online trolls. Vital, charming and incredibly smart, Margot comes to see that power resides with strength rather than authority. As her career takes flight, it’s her husband Rob and daughter Jos who privately feel the effects of her success most keenly; for one of them, where previously there was conflict now comes a greater understanding, and for the other where there was love, comes hurt and betrayal.

Over the first season, the series will follow its cast of remarkable characters from London to Seattle, Nigeria to Moldova, as the ‘Power’ evolves from a tingle in teenagers’ collarbones to a complete reversal of the power balance of the world. The Day of the Girls has arrived—but where will it end?

The series was given Amazon’s greenlight earlier this year and production has begun. After the scandal surrounding the state of Georgia’s anti-abortion bill, director Reed Morano decided to no longer film any of the show’s scenes in Georgia, as Variety reported in late May.

Alderman will be leading an all-female writers’ room that includes co-executive producer Claire Wilson, co-executive producer and story consultant Sarah Quintrell, and novelist Rebecca Levene (The Hollow Gods trilogy). The Handmaid’s Tale director Morano is directing and executive producing The Power.