Amanda Seyfried has joined the cast of The Crowded Room. Apple TV+ has announced that the actress will star in the upcoming seasonal anthology series.
Seyfried will play Rya in the season. The character is a clinical psychologist and single mother. Rya also always puts her patients as her first priority. Seyfried's previous work includes 2021's A Mouthful of Air (directed by Amy Koppelman), Things Heard & Seen (directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini), and 2020's Mank (directed by David Fincher). For her role in Mank, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Seyfried will also play Elizabeth Holmes in the upcoming Hulu series The Dropout. Joining Seyfried in The Crowded Room will be Tom Holland as Danny Sullivan. Holland is well known for playing Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His other previous work includes 2021's Chaos Walking (directed by Doug Liman), Cherry (directed by Anthony and Joe Russo), and 2020's The Devil All the Time (directed by Antonio Campos). Holland will also play Nathan Drake in Uncharted, which opens in theaters this weekend. He is also an executive producer for the series.
The Crowded Room will tell inspirational stories of people who struggled, and successfully lived with mental illness. The series was created by Akiva Goldsman. Goldsman's previous writing work includes 2017's The Dark Tower (directed by Nikolaj Arcel), Rings (directed by F. Javier Gutierrez), and 2016's The 5th Wave (directed by J Blakeson). He also won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on 2001's A Beautiful Mind (directed by Ron Howard). Goldsman will also be an executive producer for the series through his Weed Road Productions banner.
The series is based in part on both Goldman's life and the biography The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes. Milligan was acquitted of the rape and robbery of three women on the Ohio State University campus after psychologist Dorothy Turner diagnosed him with Dissociative Identity Disorder. He was later diagnosed with having 24 personalities. Kornel Mundruczo will direct the first season. His previous work includes 2021's Evolution, 2020's Pieces of a Woman, and 2017's Jupiter's Moon. Mundruczo will also be an executive producer. The series is a co-production between Apple Studios and New Regency. Suzanne Heathcoate, EMJAG Productions' Alexandra Milchan, and New Regency's Aron Milchan, Yariv Milchan, and Michael Schaefer will be executive producers.
No official release date has been announced for when The Crowded Room will premiere on Apple TV+. The first season will consist of ten episodes.