Jeff Daniels and Tom Pelphrey face off in David E. Kelley's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full.
Author Tom Wolfe made a name for himself with his incisive observational journalism and satirizations of the oblivious elite in books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities. His 1998 New York Times best-selling novel A Man in Full sets its sights on class, politics, and racial dynamics in the South through the world of Charlie Croker, a narcissistic Atlanta real estate tycoon at the peak of his powers.
In the adaptation of Wolfe’s tome, Emmy Award-winning actor Jeff Daniels is Charlie, who, on the eve of his milestone 60th birthday, is suddenly faced with challenges to the empire he’s so aggressively built. Updated for the present moment by writer and executive producer David E. Kelley, the limited series boasts an enviable ensemble: Tom Pelphrey, Diane Lane, Lucy Liu, William Jackson Harper, Aml Ameen, and Bill Camp’s characters all find themselves tangled in Charlie’s web as he fights off a careening fall from grace.
Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey)
Photograph by Mark Hill
Roger White (Aml Ameen) and Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper)
Photograph by Mark Hill
Joyce Newman (Lucy Liu) and Martha Croker (Diane Lane)
Photograph by Mark Hill
Regina King and Shania Twain
Photograph by Mark Hill
Kelley (Big Little Lies, The Undoing) teams up with Regina King, who directs three of A Man in Full’s six installments and executive-produces under her Royal Ties Productions banner, to create a narrative that is both biting and timely. “I felt that it was just so exciting and refreshing to have the opportunity to be able to tell a satirical story, and there’s nothing better [than] the Tom Wolfe-David E. Kelley combination,” King tells Queue. “[David] felt like I could come aboard with him and find the humanity, as well as keep it in this satirical place so we could craft something that’s a combination of both. He said that the story is one that he’s been wanting to tell for years.”
