MGM+ casts Kat Cunning in a series regular role in American Hostage

American Hostage is an upcoming thriller anthology series that is an adaptation of a scripted podcast of the same name, which was released in 2022. The original scripted podcast starred Jon Hamm, Joseph Perrino, Carla Gugino, and Dylan Baker. The upcoming show, which is based on the same scripted podcast, will also star Hamm, along with a new cast.

As Deadline reports, Kat Cunning has been cast in American Hostage in a regular role.

Kat Cunning is going to star in American Hostage

American Hostage, the scripted podcast, followed the true story of Tony Kiritsis, who took his mortgage broker hostage in 1977. While the show was in a podcast format and did not exactly give us a visual of the incidents, the new adaptation is a series and will show us how the real incident played out.

According to Variety, American Hostage's official logline states,

“psychological thriller set in the 1970s that tells the harrowing true story of Fred Heckman (Hamm), a beloved Indianapolis radio reporter who is thrust into the middle of a life-or-death crisis when hostage-taker Tony Kiritsis demands to be interviewed on his popular radio news program.”

As Deadline reports, Kat Cunning has been cast as Ibby Hall, the wife of Dick Hall, the man that got taken hostage by Tony Kiritsis. Cunning is an actor and recording artist who is known for playing Claire in Star People (2025), Sara in One Big Happy Family (2025), Gail in On Swift Horses (2024), Sabine in Trinkets (2019-2020), and Christina Fuego in The Deuce (2018-2019). Besides American Hostage, Cunning will also be seen in Sweet Thing and Bad Karaoke, both of which are currently in post-production.

Other members of the cast include John Hamm as Fred Heckman, Giovanni Ribisi as Tony Kiritsis, and Kristoffer Polaha as Dick Hall. Mireille Enos and William Jackson Harper star in unspecified roles. The show is created by Shawn Ryan and Eileen Myers, who also serve as executive producers along with Connie Tavel, John Hamm, Marney Hochman, Sharon Hoffman, Shawn Christensen, and Gabriel Mason. Sony Pictures Television is the production house.

As Variety reported earlier in the year, speaking about the upcoming show, head of MGM+, Michael Wright, said,

“The combination of prolific producers Shawn Ryan and Eileen Myers, a singular talent like Jon Hamm, and our partners at Sony Pictures Television, is a match made in MGM+ heaven.”

He continued,

“This is a fascinating story about real people engaged in a real-time life-or-death struggle to keep a desperate hostage situation from spinning out of control, and I can’t think of a more gifted actor on whom to center the story than Jon.”

Jon Hamm's voice was the central character of the podcast, which debuted at #7 on Apple Podcasts in the United States. While listeners have only heard the voices of the characters based on real people who went through such a horrific experience, this time, a full visual will help them understand the story better.

American Hostage is going to start filming in the fall of 2025 in Winnipeg. A release date has not been confirmed yet. Stay tuned for more information.

You can listen to the American Hostage podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Trending

For more articles like this, follow Soapcentral.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback