Liv Tyler boards Kit Harington's Guy Fawkes drama

Written by . Published: February 20 2017

Actress Liv Tyler has joined Game Of Thrones star Kit Harington in an upcoming BBC drama about English radical Guy Fawkes.


Sherlock actor Mark Gatiss and War Horse's Peter Mullan have also boarded Gunpowder, a historical three-part series Harington helped develop and will co-executive produce via his Thriker Films vehicle.

Harington will star as Robert Catesby, the brains behind a 1605 plot to blow up London's Houses of Parliament and kill Protestant King James I in a bid to restore a Catholic monarch to the throne.

The plan was foiled on 5 November, 1605, when authorities received an anonymous tip off and discovered Fawkes guarding the explosives. That date has since become known as Guy Fawkes Night in the U.K., and Brits annually burn Fawkes effigies and set off fireworks to commemorate his capture.

Tyler will play Catesby's cousin, Anne Vaux, while Gatiss will portray Robert Cecil, one of the top politicians who uncovered the plot to kill the king.

Gunpowder, directed by J. Blakeson, will begin production later this month (Feb17).

Ironically, Harington is a direct descendant of Catesby's on his mother's side, while one of his father's ancestors was present in the Houses of Parliament after Catesby's death.

He shared the interesting news during an appearance on Britain's The Andrew Marr Show last year (16), when he revealed, "When his (Catesby's) head was marched past the Houses of Parliament on a pike, John Harington, on my father's side, who was in the Houses of Parliament at the time, looked at him and is quoted as saying: 'He's an ugly fellow, isn't he?'"