TV's new Saint named

Martin Anderson

Will the casting of Rome's James Purefoy as Leslie Charteris's foppish Euro-spy raise any eyebrows?

Published on Dec 7, 2007

Rome actor James Purefoy is to play Simon Templar in a new television series of The Saint. The official Saint and Leslie Charteris blog at www.saint.org reports that the former Royal Shakespeare Company actor, associated several times with casting calls for James Bond over the last decade, will play the European spy-for hire in a new series to be shot in Europe and Australia, and that pre-production is underway for the two-hour pilot.

Though eyebrow-raising dandy Roger Moore is best-known for the role, he was in fact the seventh person to play the part. TV Saints that followed him included Ian Oglivy in The Return Of The Saint in the mid 1970s and Simon Dutton in the even less-regarded late-80s Saint reboot. Val Kilmer played Templar in a critically-dismissed movie adaptation in 1997.

‘Oz’ producer Jorge Zamacona is joined in the new production by Roger Moore’s son (Moore himself retains the television rights to the Leslie Charteris character)and Bill Macdonald.

Purefoy came to public attention in films including The Knight’s Tale, Resident Evil and V For Vendetta.