Michael Fassbender as Kennedy: first photo

A great Netflix saga about the rise of JFK’s father in 1930s America.

Netflix immerses us in a new historical family saga.

After the royal family in The Crown, the platform revealed a first behind-the-scenes image of its future Kennedy series, with Michael Fassbender in the role of Joe Kennedy Sr., patriarch of one of the most legendary families in American history. The story will therefore not be centered on JFK and Jackie, as often, but on the previous generation, the one who installed the dynasty in the upper echelons of Uncle Sam.

Around Fassbender, we will find Laura Donnelly (Rose Kennedy), Nick Robinson (Joe Kennedy Jr.), Joshuah Melnick (Jack Kennedy), Lydia Peckham (Rosemary Kennedy) and Saura Lightfoot-Leon (Kick Kennedy). Also added are Ben Miles, Cole Doman and Imogen Poots.

And the cast is seriously expanding and welcomes a wave of new faces, including Georgina Bitmead (Sex Education), who will play Eunice Kennedy, Miley Locke as the young version of Kick, or even Tipper Seifert-Cleveland in the role of Rosemary as a child. Hera Hilmar will lend her features to Inga Arvad, close to Jack Kennedy in the 1940s.

As for historical figures, the cast is lined up for heavy duty: Wyatt Russell will be the aviator Charles Lindbergh, Caitlin FitzGerald will play Clare Boothe Luce, Robin Soans will play Neville Chamberlain, Albert Welling will be Winston Churchill, Toby Huss will play Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eddie Marsan will slip into the shoes of J. Edgar Hoover.

Adapted from the book JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 by Fredrik Logevall, the series promises to delve into the intimate behind the scenes of the Kennedy dynasty: ambitions, rivalries, dramas… All while retracing, from the 1930s, the meteoric rise of Joe and Rose and their nine children, including young Jack, determined to emerge from the shadow of his older brother.

At the helm, Sam Shaw serves as showrunner, surrounded in particular by screenwriter Eric Roth and director Thomas Vinterberg.

Filming for this first season of eight episodes is currently underway in London. No release date yet.