Olivia Welch, Mike Faist, and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut take on lead roles in the adaptation of Lauren Oliver’s PANIC.
We finally have casting news on the Amazon’s Panic the YA pilot based off of Lauren Oliver’s bestselling novel. It has been announced recently that Olivia Welch, Mike Faist, and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut will be taking on the lead roles as Heather Nill, Dodge Mason, and Natalie Velez, respectively.
They will play three high school seniors who sign up for an annual illegal and very dangerous, life-risking “game” to win a large amount of money that could change their lives and, for some of them, escape their droll town. This time around, there are 47 competitors and a lot of money in the pot.
Heather, Dodge, and Natalie have their different reasons to try to win the game, but only one gets to win, however, with this being a pilot, there are going to be at least a few changes. According to Deadline, the pilot will be more of an ensemble piece, which probably means Chestnut’s character will have more of a presence in the pilot than she did in the book, which centered more on Heather and Dodge.
Welch is a fairly new actress with credits in Agent Carter and Modern Family.
Faist is probably better known for his stage performance as Connor Murphy in the Tony-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen, in which he was nominated for a Tony as well.
Chestnut has appeared in Gotham, The Good Fight, and several episodes of Homeland.
Leigh Janiak (Scream: The TV Series, Outcast) is directing the pilot from a script written by author Lauren Oliver, with Joe Roth & Jeff Kirschenbaum as producers.
