A new international criminal genius has arrived on American TV played by Morena Baccarin, the Brazilian-American star of Deadpool franchise fame.
Baccarin plays cunning Russian villainess Elena Federova in NBC’s new heist drama series The Endgame. She squares off against principled FBI agent Val Turner, played by This Is Us’ Ryan Michelle Bathé as she wreaks havoc while in the Bureau’s custody.
“Criminal mastermind,” posted the artist on Instagram along with a full-body shot of her character in a long, royal blue silky dress, followed by the hashtag #theendgame and linking the Peacock network @nbc.
Baccarin and Bathé are joined by cast members Aaron Costa Ganis (Lazy Eye), Costa Ronin (The Americans), Jordan Johnson-Hinds (Nurses) and Kamal Angelo Bolden (Vacation Friends). Actors Mark D. Espinoza (The Fugitive) and Juan Carlos Hernández (High Crimes) also join in the heist series. Justin Lin, who helmed last year’s F9: The Fast Saga as well as its prequel Fast & Furious 6 directs.
This is not the first time Baccarin plays a prominent villain. In the ABC sci-fi series V, she was Anna, the leader of an alien race that came to Earth pretending good intentions but having ulterior motives while they ingrain themselves into human society. Also, the actress had a recurring role in the tenth season of Stargate SG-1, a science fiction adventure TV show that was part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Stargate franchise. She played Adria, a member of an advanced extraterrestrial race that tried to trick humans and other less advanced races to treat them like gods.
But her television and film credits also show her acting versatility in series like the crime dramas Homeland and The Mentalist, the law procedural The Good Wife and the two installments of superhero movie franchise Deadpool, opposite Ryan Reynolds in the title role. She also appeared in the medical drama Heartland and the teen drama The OC.
Her Homeland role as Jessica Brody, a conflicted wife of a former prisoner of war, earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She won a Behind the Voice Actors Award for her guest role in the superhero TV series The Flash. Last year, Baccarin won an Imagen Foundation Award for Best Supporting Actress in Television Drama for her part in the reboot of The Twilight Zone series.
As the pandemic has eased up film production, the Brazilian actress is set to appear in three upcoming movies that are currently in pre-production.
She will co-star opposite Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe in the thriller Tropico and Gerard Butler in Greenland: Migration, the sequel to the 2020 apocalyptic drama Greenland, reprising her role as Allison Garrity, the wife of Butler’s John Garrity.
Baccarin will also have the title role in the survivalist feature Beast. She plays a woman who must fight to stay alive on a deserted island after surviving a plane crash, facing an unimaginable threat as she struggles to return to her children. The film will be directed by Espen Sandberg, who helmed the 2017 adventure flick Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
