Alexander Skarsgard Joins 'The Stand' at CBS All Access

CBS All Access' The Stand has found its villain.


Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies) has joined the limited series as Randall Flagg, the primary antagonist in Stephen King's novel. The 10-episode series begins production in Vancouver Friday with a cast that also includes James Marsden, Amber Heard, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, Owen Teague, Henry Zaga, Brad William Henke and Whoopi Goldberg. Daniel Sunjata will have a guest role.


Skarsgard joins his brother Bill — who has played Pennywise in both It movies — in playing a Stephen King villain.


The Stand tells the story of a world decimated by plague and locked in an elemental struggle between good and evil. The fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of 108-year-old Mother Abagail (Goldberg) and a handful of survivors whose worst nightmares are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.


Flagg's unsettling and ever-changing presence is the embodiment of pure evil. Like Mother Abagail, he appears in the dreams of survivors, but his goal is far more sinister.


Skarsgard won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for his role on the first season of HBO's Big Little Lies. He currently appears in Showtime's On Becoming a God in Central Florida; other recent credits include AMC's The Little Drummer Girl and feature film Long Shot.


Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars), a longtime King fan who has been attached to The Stand since it was optioned as a feature film in 2014, is writing the CBS TV Studios project with Ben Cavell. Boone is also set to direct. King will write the last chapter of the series, with a coda that isn't in the book.


Boone and Cavell are executive producing along with Roy Lee, Jimmy Miller and Richard P. Rubinstein. Will Weiske is a co-EP, and Knate Lee, Jill Killington and Owen King are producers.


The Stand will join a lineup of originals on CBS All Access that includes The Good Fight, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek: Discovery, Strange Angel, Tell Me a Story, Why Women Kill and No Activity, along with the upcoming Interrogation, Star Trek: Picard, The Man Who Fell to Earth and the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks.