“Unbelievable” star Kaitlyn Dever has been tapped to star opposite Michael Keaton in Hulu’s opioid-crisis drama “Dopesick,” TheWrap has confirmed.
She will star in the limited series as Betsy, a proud female coal miner and patient of Keaton’s Dr. Finnix. According to Hulu’s description of the series, the pair “have a close relationship that gets tested with the release of the new painkiller, OxyContin.”
The drama is described “an ambitious, harrowing, and compelling look into the epicenter of America’s struggle with Opioid addiction.” The series will take viewers from a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the DEA, and to the opulence of “one percenter” Big Pharma Manhattan.
Dever joins Keaton and Peter Sarsgaard, who will also star in the series as Rick Mountcastle, an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the Purdue Pharma case.
Touchstone Television’s “Dopesick” is written by “Empire” co-creator Danny Strong and will be directed by Barry Levinson. In addition to those two, executive producers include John Goldwyn, Warren Littlefield, Beth Macy and Karen Rosenfelt.
The eight-episode limited series, set to premiere in 2021, is based on the New York Times bestselling book of the same name by Beth Macy.
Deadline first reported the news of Dever’s casting.