The Post: Steven Spielberg casts the best actors currently on TV in new film

Bob Odenkirk, Carrie Coon and more have joined the director's latest

(Steven Spielberg. Credit: Getty Images)

Steven Spielberg has added an ensemble of actors to the cast of his new film The Papers including some of the best actors to have worked on television over the past few years.

Joining Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks for the Pentagon Papers project is Breaking Bad alumni and Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk, The Americans' Matthew Rhys and Carrie Coon who stole scenes in HBO series The Leftovers which drew to a close last weekend.

American Horror Story's Sarah Paulson has also been cast as has Arrested Development standout David Cross and Jesse Plemons who appeared in season two of Noah Hawley's anthology series Fargo.

Elsewhere, Alison Brie (Mad Men), Tracy Letts (Homeland), Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire), Bradley Whitford (The West Wing), Bruce Greenwood, Pat Healy and Zach Woods will also be appearing in the all-star cast of Spielberg's upcoming project.

The Papers will explore the role the Washington Post played in exposing the titular Papers, which were unreported facts about a secret aim to escalate the Vietnam War in 1971. The Post won a legal challenge in the Supreme Court after fighting the government for the right to report on its contents.

Hanks is playing the Post's editor Ben Bradlee while Streep will star as publisher Kay Graham.

The Papers will arrive in the US on a very Oscar-friendly 22 December before a 16 January release in the UK.