National Geographic and Fox 21 Television Studios, along with Imagine Television today announced the key cast joining previously announced Antonio Banderas in the second season of the Emmy-nominated anthology series GENIUS.
The new cast is highlighted by Alex Rich (“GLOW,” “True Detective”), who will share the title role with Banderas, playing a young Pablo Picasso, one of the 20th century’s most influential and celebrated artists.
Joining Rich are Clémence Poésy (“Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire,” “In Bruges”) as Francoise Gilot, a French painter and best-selling author whose decadelong affair with Picasso yielded two children; Sebastian Roche (“Young Pope”) as Emile Gilot, Francoise’s tyrannical father; Robert Sheehan (“Fortitude,” “Misfits”) as Carlos Casagemas, a Spanish art student and poet who was one of Picasso’s closest friends; Poppy Delevingne (“Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”) as Marie-Thérèse Walter, a lover and muse of Picasso, who mothered his first daughter; and Aisling Franciosi (“Game of Thrones,” “The Fall”) as Fernande Olivier, a French artist and model who Picasso painted more than 60 portraits of.
Several cast members from the first season of GENIUS will return to the franchise, including Samantha Colley (“The Crucible”) as Dora Maar, a French photographer and painter who was also Picasso’s lover and muse; T.R. Knight (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Catch”) as Max Jacob, one of Picasso’s first friends in Paris; Seth Gabel (“Salem”) as Guillaume Apollinaire, one of the foremost poets of the 20th century and a frequent collaborator with Picasso; and Johnny Flynn (“Lovesick”), as French actor Alain Cuny.
