Cate Blanchett has co-created and will star in a new series about four strangers grappling with the immigration system.
She will star opposite The Handmaid’s Tale actress Yvonne Strahovski, Divergent’s Jai Courtney and The Affair star Dominic West.
Stateless will follow the stories of an airline hostess on the run from a cult, an Afghan refugee, a father of three and a bureaucrat.
Cate Blanchett co-created & co-stars in Stateless, limited series about four strangers (an airline hostess on the run from a cult, an Afghan refugee, a father of three & a bureaucrat) grappling with the immigration system. Yvonne Strahovski, Jai Courtney & Dominic West co-star pic.twitter.com/N1Njb3NCYR
— See What's Next (@seewhatsnext) February 25, 2020
The drama will air in Australia on public broadcaster in ABC and will be available on Netflix worldwide.
Blanchett previously told US trade website Deadline that she conceived the drama in her kitchen in 2013 when a conversation about immigration with writer Elise McCredie sparked an ambition to thread together stories about people caught up in the Australian border control system.
The Australian star, who is an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said: “The conversation began not with any particular story, but with the immigration detention stories and the transformation of public conversation around that.
“That was the backdrop and the atmosphere in which we began wanting to work together. It’s not based on any one person’s experience; there’s been a painstaking amount of research, including scores of people that she (McCredie) spoke to and my experience with the UNHCR.”