Two more casting announcements have been made this week for TNT’s TV adaptation of The Alienist. Variety reported earlier this week that Matt Lintz has been cast as Stevie Taggert. The fifteen year old actor has previously appeared in feature films Pixels (2015) and Kill the Messenger (2014), along with a number of TV series including Sleepy Hollow (2013), Banshee (2013), and Revolution (2012). Variety’s description of Stevie as a boy “hardened by a life on the streets” who had risen to “become the bane of fifteen police precincts” before becoming Dr. Kreizler’s ward is loyal to the source material, and Matt Lintz certainly looks the part for the youngest member of the investigative team.
In addition, Deadline reported on Friday that Matthew Shear has also joined the cast as Lucius Isaacson. Matthew’s break-out role was in Mistress America (2015), but he has also appeared in number of TV series including Horace and Pete (2016) and Deadbeat (2016). As with Stevie, Deadline’s description of Lucius as “an extremely intelligent, focused man whose medical studies have helped hone his expertise in criminal science” is consistent with the novel, but the extended description that he “believes that bones provide the most accurate information when it comes to forensics” comes out of nowhere and is a little troubling.
Finally, TV Wise exclusively reported on Wednesday that Netflix is currently finalising a deal for international distribution of the ten episode series. They report that the deal will give Netflix first window rights in the UK along with more than 170 other countries. Good news for those of us outside the United States!
I can’t help but wonder if Deadline’s report on the description of the character of Lucius Isaacson isn’t possibly drawn up from the writer of the article herself. I went to the pressroom page of Turner’s website, where they list these casting announcements, and so far they haven’t put up the announcement of either Matt Lintz or Matthew Shear. I totally believe they’ve both been cast, but as to Lucius’ description, I do recall that there is a part in the novel where he goes on to describe how he and Marcus employ Bertillion’s method for identification using measurements of a victim. Perhaps the writer of the article only did a quick bit of research on Lucius, thought it was too much trouble to explain to her readers Bertillion’s method, and decided to run with the whole ‘bones’ explanation? It’s a bit of a stretch for an explanation, but I’m just speculating here, since Turner hasn’t posted this casting announcement on their website and they usually provide small character descriptions of their own. Hopefully Deadline’s writer just meant Lucius taking the measurement of bones and nothing else.
I should also quickly add that my big concern with the casting of Matthew Shear is that he clearly does not have thinning hair. Normally this would not be an issue for me, except that Lucius having thinning hair is a significant plot point in the novel, when all of the characters are doing that “stake-out’ on the rooftops and John mistakes the back of John Beecham’s head for Lucius’ because of his balding pate. Based on Matthew Shear’s photos, he appears to have no issues with baldness, so I hope make up intends to do something about that, or the writers will have to change how John mistakes Beecham for Lucius on the rooftops.