EXCLUSIVE: Good news for Forever fans — series star Ioan Gruffudd is returning to the Disney/ABC fold as the star of a crime drama series, playing another brilliant forensic pathologist. The Welsh actor has been tapped as the lead in the Australian series Harrow, the first international drama production for the Disney-owned ABC Studios International, which has teamed up on the project with Hoodlum Entertainment (Secrets & Lies), Australian Broadcasting Company and Screen Queensland.
Co-created by Secrets & Lies writer Stephen M. Irwin and producer Leigh McGrath and written by Irwin, the 10-episode Harrow tells the story of Dr. Daniel Harrow (Gruffudd), who is no ordinary forensic pathologist. Brilliant. Unorthodox. And a murderer? Harrow's total disregard for authority and his unfailing empathy for the dead help him solve even the most bizarre of cases. He is driven to give victims a voice and will bend every rule to get to the truth of what happened to them. But when a terrible secret from his past threatens his family, his career and himself, Harrow needs all his wit, wile and forensic genius not to solve a crime but to keep it buried.
Irwin and McGrath produce with Hoodlum Entertainment's Tracey Robertson and Nathan Mayfield. Filming begins in Queensland, Australia, on August 7.
Gruffudd, known internationally for playing the title character in the Horatio Hornblower series of TV movies, became a fan favorite with his role as the immortal medical examiner Henry Morgan on the ABC/Warner Bros. TV crime drama series Forever, which was surprisingly cancelled after one season but quickly achieved cult status, developing devoted following. He will be seen later this year opposite Joanne Froggatt in the ITV/Sundance TV mini-series, Liar, and the film The Professor and the Madman, starring Sean Penn and Mel Gibson. Gruffudd is repped by ICM Partners, Framework Entertainment and Nelson Davis.