A-listers Assemble.
Aram Rappaport scored some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone, Janet McTeer and Hank Azaria, to star in his new murder mystery series, “The Artist.”
“Mandy came first and I think he turned it down first, and then we came back to him with an appeal that he should look at this like a comedy,” Rappaport exclusively told The Post.
“It read very dark and depressing, and I think that’s not something he necessarily wanted to do. And so when we decided it would be sort of a love story between him and the wife, it was something that he was very passionate about ultimately.”
“And then a lot of the other actors, I wrote for them,” he continued. “Patti LuPone, I sort of begged for a meeting and I just said, I really would love for her to just meet with me and I can just talk about what she wants to do and that I can write something for. And so that’s how a lot of that came about.”
“The Artist,” which is airing on Rappaport’s free streaming service, The Network, also stars Danny Huston, Hank Azaria, Zachary Quinto, Clark Gregg, Ever Anderson and Katharine McPhee.
The series is set in the Gilded Age and features an ensemble of the era’s celebrities who are all suspects in the death of an eccentric tycoon.
Rappaport took an “entrepreneurial” approach, especially with LuPone, 76, to roundup the cast.
“Patti was on Broadway at the time, so she could only work on Mondays,” he recalled to The Post. “So that was like, ‘All right, what are we going to shoot with her only on Mondays? Oh, these characters work on Mondays, let’s organically craft a role for her that makes sense to shoot it that way.’ So a lot of it was that.”
Rappaport also revealed that he was surprised by every actor who said yes to being in the show.
“I think it’s like constant imposter syndrome. You’re just like, ‘Why do you like this and why do you want to do it? You have a million things you could do, why this?’” he said.
“I constantly had that thought, especially days when everyone’s there and you have every star at a dinner table, and they all in their own right could have been starring in the show alone. And it’s like, why are you here?”
Part 1 of “The Artist” premieres Thursday on The Network. Part 2 premieres on Christmas.
