Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi, Michael Palin, Timothy Dalton, Olga Kurylenko, Toby Kebbel, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine and Andrea Riseborough will all join the cast of Armando Iannucci’s political satire The Death of Stalin, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Iannucci’s follow-up to his hit HBO comedy Veep will centre on the aftermath of the Soviet leader’s demise in 1953, which led to a power vacuum and days of political infighting. It is based on Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin’s 2011 graphic novel The Death of Stalin, which was first published in French.
Buscemi will play Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s eventual successor, with Tambor as Georgy Malenkov, the chairman of the council of ministers in the wake of Stalin’s death. Dalton will play Georgy Zhukov, a war hero and former confidante of Stalin who was another key figure in the power struggle.
The Death of Stalin will be Iannucci’s second film, following In the Loop, 2009’s big-screen take on his TV series The Thick of It. The Scottish satirist also executive-produced 2013’s Alan Partridge movie, Alpha Papa. The Death of Stalin was announced as shooting this year.
