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Keira Knightley set to star in The Essex Serpent adaptation on Apple TV+

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Keira Knightley is set to star in a TV adaptation of the award-winning novel The Essex Serpent.

The Oscar-nominated actress will also serve as an executive producer on the period drama, which is based on Sarah Perry’s best-selling 2016 book.

The Essex Serpent follows the newly widowed Cora – played by Knightley – who relocates from Victorian London to a small village in Essex, intrigued by a local superstition that a mythical creature has returned to the area.

The series will air on the Apple TV+ streaming service and will be directed by Clio Barnard.

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Knightley also recently signed up for a series with Hulu (Dave Benett)

A start date for production is yet to be confirmed.

It is the second TV series Knightley, 35, has recently signed up for, having been cast in Hulu’s The Other Typist earlier this year. She will also serve as an executive producer on the show.

Over the course of almost two decades in the industry, Knightley has become a go-to leading lady for British period dramas.

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With James McAvoy in Atonement ()

She earned her first Academy Award nomination when she starred as Elizabeth Bennet in Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. She has also appeared in Wright's adaptations of Ian McEwan's Atonement and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and later received her second Oscar nod for The Imitation Game in 2015.

More recently, she played the French author Colette in the 2018 biopic, starred as GCHQ whistleblower Katherine Gun in Official Secrets and appeared as feminist activist Sally Alexander in Misbehaviour, which was released earlier this year.

Additional reporting by Press Association.

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