Actor Hiroyuki Sanada has joined the cast of “Extant,” a new CBS show starring Academy Award winner Halle Berry, which will premiere on July 9 at 9 p.m.
In this serialized drama from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and CBS Television Studios, Berry, in her first TV series, will play Molly Woods, an astronaut who returns home from a year-long solo mission in space and tries to reconnect with her husband and son in their everyday life. Her experiences in space and home lead to events that ultimately will change the course of human history.
Berry, who won an Oscar for her role in “Monster’s Ball,” can currently be seen as Storm in “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”
Sanada will play Hideki Yasumoto, a wealthy technological genius who put his wealth to work privatizing the world’s space programs into a single entity.
The cast also includes Goran Visnjic (“ER”) as John Woods, Pierce Gagnon (“One Tree Hill”) as Ethan Woods, Camryn Manheim (“Ghost Whisperer”) as Sam Barton, Grace Gummer (“The Newsroom”) as Julie Gelineau, and Michael O’Neill (“Bates Motel”) as Alvin Sparks.
Visit the show’s official website at www.cbs.com/shows/extant/.
A native of Tokyo, Sanada is a protégé of martial arts star Sonny Chiba and has an extensive TV, movie and stage career in Japan going back to the 1960s. He starred in Yoji Yamada’s 2002 film “Tasogare Seibei” (The Twilight Samurai), which received an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film and won 12 Japanese Academy Awards. He also appeared in the popular horror films “Ring” and “Ring 2.”
Sanada’s English-language films include “The Last Samurai,” “The White Countess,” “Rush Hour 3,” “Sunshine,” “Speed Racer,” “The Wolverine,” “47 Ronin,” and “The Railway Man.” He also had a recurring role in the ABC series “Lost.”
He received an honorary MBE (Member of the British Empire) for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company on an English-language production of “King Lear.”