Succession star Matthew Macfadyen to play George Smiley in fresh John le Carré adaptation

Actor will follow in the footsteps of Gary Oldman, Rupert Davis, Alec Guinness and Denholm Elliott

Matthew Macfadyen has been cast as George Smiley in a new TV series based on the works of spy novelist John Le Carré that will be produced by the late author’s sons.

The Succession star, 50, will play Carré’s most famous intelligence officer in the new show called Legacy of Spies, which will draw plot lines from novels including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, and The Honourable Schoolboy, per Variety and Deadline.

Le Carré, who died aged 89 in 2020, was one of the most highly acclaimed espionage writers of our time, drawing on his own experiences in the intelligence sphere in the 1950s and 60s.

Alongside his novels, some of Le Carré’s unpublished work will be used as material for Legacy of Spies, Variety reports.

Macfadyen will join a long line of notable stars who’ve taken on the role of George Smiley. Gary Oldman, Rupert Davis, Alec Guinness and Denholm Elliott have all previously played the British secret service agent who operated during the cold war.

The celebrated actor, who starred in BBC series Spooks, has won two Emmys and two BAFTA awards for his role of Shiv Roy’s husband, Tom Wambsgans, on Succession. He’s also known for his role as Mr Darcy in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which he recently admitted he thought he’d been miscast for as he wasn’t “dishy enough”.

However, in Le Carrés first novel, Call for the Dead, Smiley is described as anything but dishy, with the author writing: “Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.”

Call For The Dead was published in 1961, while A Murder Of Quality was published the following year.

Matthew Macfadyen has been cast to play George Smiley in a new TV series based on the works of spy novelist John Le Carré (Getty Images)

News of the new series comes after Oldman’s manager Douglas Urbanski revealed to Radio Times in September that Le Carré’s sons had blocked a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy sequel starring the actor as Smiley.

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“We’ve reached out … to le Carré’s sons and – the damnedest thing – they have no interest in Gary playing Smiley again. I don’t know why,” he said at the time.

Urbanski’s confusion may be solved with news of the new series, which will be executive produced by Silo creator Graham Yost and has already been pitched to multiple interested buyers in the UK and US, Variety reports.

Smiley’s real breakthrough came in 1963 with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which told the story of Alec Leamas, an aging British intelligence agent forced to carry out one last operation in Berlin.

Gary Oldman as George Smiley in ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ (Rex Features)

Writing in The Guardian on the novel's 50th anniversary, Cornwell said: "I wrote The Spy Who Came In From The Cold at the age of 30 under intense, unshared, personal stress, and in extreme privacy.

"As an intelligence officer in the guise of a junior diplomat at the British Embassy in Bonn, I was a secret to my colleagues, and much of the time to myself."

Leamas was played in a 1965 film version by Richard Burton.