Netflix has announced that it has cast Irish actress Amybeth McNulty as the lead in Anne, its forthcoming television adaptation of Anne of Green Gables series with CBC.
The 14-year-old who hails from Donegal, initially auditioned for the series online from her home and managed to beat thousands of girls from around the globe to land the lead role of the gifted and imaginative Anne Shirley.
The young actress, has been filming the new series Anne on Prince Edward Island in Canada since the show began production in September. The new role is giving her an opportunity to discover her mother's homeland as her mother is Canadian.
She may be familiar to Irish audiences as she previously appeared in the RTÉ drama series Clean Break.
Based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel, Anne of Green Gables, the series centres on a young orphaned girl in the late 1890s.
The show’s writer Moira Walley-Beckett has previously won three Emmy’s for her work as a writer and producer on Breaking Bad
Amybeth, read the Anne Green of Gables books when she was nine and says she shares many personality traits with the titular heroine. The actress told CBC News. “She has so much love for the world, which I think I share with her.”
Other cast in the new series will include seasoned actors Canadian R.H. Thomson and English actress Geraldine James known for her roles in Alice In Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. They will be filling the roles of Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, the brother and sister who become Anne's guardians.
Anne will premiere on CBC Television in the spring of 2017, and will simultaneously stream on Netflix in the United States and around the world. It is stated to stream on Netflix Canada at a later date.
