Nicole Kidman to adapt Patricia Cornwall’s Kay Scarpetta books, series greenlit for two seasons

Nicole Kidman cannot get enough of TV.

The Australian actor has signed onto a new crime drama called Scarpetta, which has been greenlit by Amazon Studios for two seasons.

The show is based on Patricia Cornwall’s popular book series centred on the character of Kay Scarpetta who has appeared in 27 books, starting in 1990.

Kidman will play Scarpetta, a medical examiner who relies on forensics to solve crimes. She will be joined by Jamie Lee Curtis who is to play her sister Dorothy.

The star-stacked cast also includes Simon Baker who is returning to American TV for the first time since he wrapped up his seven-season run on The Mentalist in 2015. He is to play an FBI profiler named Benton Wesley, who is a love interest to Kay in Cornwall’s books.

Baker and Kidman had previously portrayed a couple in an episode of the anthology series Roar, which was an American production but their instalment was filmed in Australia during pandemic lockdowns.

Also in the cast is Bobby Cannavale, Kidman’s co-star in Nine Perfect Strangers, who plays detective Pete Marino, Ariana DeBose will portray Kay’s niece Lucy, while Rosy McEwen will play a younger version of Kay and Jake Cannavale, son of Bobby, will take on the role of the young Pete.

Liz Sarnoff, known for her work on Lost, Deadwood and Barry, is adapting the books for the screen and will be its showrunner.

Kidman and Curtis both serve as executive producers alongside Cornwall, Jason Blum, Jeremy Gold, Chris Dickie, Chris McCumber, Per Saari, Amy Sayres and David Gordon Green.

Green was Curtis’s director on the recent Halloween revival trilogy and he will helm the first two episodes of Scarpetta.

Kidman said in a statement, “I’ve been pursuing Scarpetta for nearly 20 years, back to when it was intended to be a feature.”

She added that the convergence of everyone working on this version “feels like it was meant to be”.

Sarnoff said, “I read Patricia Cornwall’s Scarpetta books with my mother when they came out in the nineties. We loved having a badass female ‘boss’ heroine to root for and were amazed by the specificity, complexity, and sheer addictiveness of Patricia’s storytelling.”

Kidman has been active on the small screen since taking on one of the lead roles in Big Little Lies in 2017. She has since been in Top of the Lake: China Girl, The Undoing, Nine Perfect Strangers, Special Ops: Lioness, Expats and The Perfect Couple.

She recently filmed a second season of Nine Perfect Strangers and a third season of Big Little Lies is in early production.

Kidman’s prolific presence on TV was the punchline of a joke from Steve Martin onstage at this week’s Emmy Awards. He zinged, “When I see an actor I don’t know, I just say, ‘I love your scene with Nicole Kidman, and nine times out of 10, I’m right!”.

On the big screen, Kidman last month premiered at the Venice Film Festival the feature Babygirl in which she plays a powerful woman who embarks on a tryst with a younger intern. She won the festival’s award for best actress for her performance.