Robert Downey Jr. may have stumbled a bit after the release of Avengers: Endgame, but after an Oscar win with Oppenheimer, HBO is ready to release his collaboration with Oldboy director Park Chan-wook titled The Sympathizer.
The series is set to premiere later this month, and we have a new trailer featuring star Hoa Xuande and RDJ in what looks to be several goofy costumes a la The Nutty Professor. Check this out:
The series is actually based on a book of the same name from Vietnamese-American professor Viet Thanh Nguyen. The novel was released in 2015 and had won the Pulitzer in 2016. There was also a sequel book written called The Committed, and it was published around March 2021.
So far, the series looks fantastic—which you can always expect from a network like HBO. It’s too early to know if Xuande has the chops to lead a series, but this will definitely be a huge opportunity for him. As for RDJ, we already know he can play both comedic and serious, and hopefully he gets to play around with that when the show comes out.
Here’s the official description for The Sympathizer:
Near the end of the Vietnam War, a plant who was embedded in the South Vietnam army flees to the United States and takes up residence in a refugee community, where he continues to secretly spy and report back to the Viet Cong.
The Sympathizer is a limited series and will premiere on Max this April 14.
