J.K. Simmons/Anna Kendrick Thriller, Lana Condor on Elsbeth and More

Anna Kendrick and J.K. Simmons are embarking on a new mission: The Pitch Perfect alum is teaming up with the Whiplash actor in Embassy, a geopolitical thriller that is not yet attached to a streamer or network.

The series will follow Layla (Kendrick), a sharp and resourceful American diplomat who faces an impossible choice after armed mercenaries storm the U.S. Embassy in London. She must decide whether to “protect the U.S. Ambassador (Simmons) or follow his orders to exfiltrate a high value asset being held at the embassy,” the logline reads. “As a larger conspiracy unfolds, Layla must rely on her instincts — and the reluctant help of her ex-fiancé, a British SAS soldier — in the tense hours before extraction.”

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Best known for starring in the Pitch Perfect franchise, Kendrick’s credits also include Love Life, Woman of the Hour and Up in the Air. She most recently reprised her A Simple Favor role in the Prime Video sequel Another Simple Favor.

Simmons, meanwhile, has appeared in films such as Juno, La La Land and Spider-Man. He is set to star in the forthcoming MGM+ crime drama The Westies opposite Titus Welliver.

Production on Embassy, which consists of six hour-long episodes, is set to begin in February 2026 in London and Cologne.

In other recent casting news…

* Brett Gelman (Stranger Things), Jessica Madsen (Bridgerton), Cameron Britton (Mindhunter), Bill Heck (The Old Man) and Justin Bartha (The Good Fight) have joined the cast of Apple TV+’s limited series Wild Things, starring Jude Law and Andrew Garfield as legendary magicians Siegfried and Roy, Variety reports.

* The Walking Dead: Dead City has added Raúl Castillo (Task) to the Season 3 cast as a series regular, per Deadline.

* Lana Condor (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) will guest-star in Season 3 of Elsbeth, which premieres Sunday, Oct. 12, at 9:30/8:30c on CBS, before moving to its regular 10 pm time slot on Thursday, Oct. 16. According to Variety, Condor will play Peyton, the much younger girlfriend of a college basketball coach who gets blamed for the death of the school’s athletic director.

* Rain Spencer (The Summer I Turned Pretty) is set to executive-produce and star in Prime Video’s Genuine Fraud, Deadline reports. Based on E. Lockhart’s YA novel of the same name, the series follows a social chameleon (Spencer) who reinvents herself as the best friend of a wealthy heiress, then assumes her friend’s life after she goes missing.

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