Gillian Anderson has lined up her next series regular role after exiting the “X-Files” revival. The actress is set to star as a sex therapist in Netflix’s coming-of-age dramedy “Sex Education.”
She will be joined by “Ender’s Game” star Asa Butterfield, who will play Jean’s (Anderson) teenage son, Otis.
Here’s the series’ official logline: Meet Otis Thompson (Butterfield) – a socially awkward high school virgin who lives with his mother, a sex therapist. Surrounded by manuals, videos and tediously open conversations about sex, Otis is a reluctant expert on the subject. When his home life is revealed at school, Otis realizes that he can use his specialist knowledge to gain status. He teams up with Maeve, a whip-smart bad-girl, and together they set up an underground sex therapy clinic to deal with their fellow students’ weird and wonderful problems. Through his analysis of teenage sexuality, Otis realizes he may need some therapy of his own.
The cast also includes Emma Mackey as Maeve, Ncuti Gatwa as Otis’s best friend Eric, Connor Swindells as class bully Adam, and Kedar Williams-Stirling as head boy and all round heartthrob Jackson.
“Sex Education” is an eight-part original series from the streaming service, created and written by Laurie Nunn and directed by Ben Taylor (“Catastrophe”). The dramedy hails from UK based production company Eleven, and is run by creative directors Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell and MD Dan Cheesbrough. Filming is now underway in the U.K., with the show set to debut globally on Netflix in 2019.