Mark Strong to Reprise ‘Low Winter Sun’ Role in AMC’s Remake

Mark Strong in Toronto in June 2011. (Nathan Denette, The Canadian Press/AP Images)

So nice, he’s playing it twice. Fast-rising British actor Mark Strong is having a second go at a role he already made his own back in 2006.

The RocknRolla and Kick-Ass star will have top billing on Low Winter Sun, a new crime series on the AMC channel, according to Deadline.com. He’s set to play Det. Frank Agnew, a Detroit cop who helps murder a fellow lawman and believes he has pulled off the perfect crime.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s because Strong already played the part before. He starred as Agnew when Low Winter Sun was first made as a two-part drama for British TV in 2006. The show aired on BBC America the following year.

The BAFTA-nominated serial was set in Edinburgh and co-starred Brian McCardie as Agnew’s partner in crime fighting and – once they commit murder – crime.

When the show played on BBC America, a New York Times critic wrote, “Crime movies don’t get much darker than Low Winter Sun … and performances in such films don’t get much better than the ones turned in by Mark Strong and Brian McCardie.”

In the new AMC version, Strong’s co-star will be fellow Brit Lennie James (Jericho, Hung and, most recently, BBC2’s Line of Duty). Both men are expected to be working American accents during the ten-episode first season, which will be shot on location in Detroit and is likely to begin airing later next year.

Strong, who often plays villainous or morally ambiguous characters, can next be seen portraying a CIA officer in the sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty. Last year, he was in Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and played the power-mad baddie in Green Lantern.

Here’s a trailer for the original British version of Low Winter Sun: