Is Robert Quarles’ sleeve-pistol about to jam at an inopportune moment?
Neal McDonough, currently playing the menacing Detroit mobster Quarles on “Justified,” will star as 1940s Los Angeles police chief William Parker in “L.A. Noir,” the new cops-and-mobsters TNT pilot from ousted “Walking Dead” mastermind Frank Darabont.
McDonough’s casting suggests Quarles may be going the way of Mags, Coover and Doyle Bennett (as opposed to Dickie Bennett, who survived to fight another season).
McDonough starred as an L.A. ADA in "Boomtown." His other credits include "Murder One," "Band of Brothers," "X-Files," "Desperate Housewives," "Traveler," "Tin Man," "Ravenous," "Captain America" and "Star Trek: First Contact."
Milo Ventimiglia, who grew famous playing Peter Petrelli on "Heroes," is set and “Walking Dead” star Jon Bernthal is in negotiations to star in the project.
Ventimiglia and Bernthal would play men who served together during World War II before finding their ways to 1940s Los Angeles. The Bernthal character would be a mob lawyer.
Still to be cast is L.A. gang boss Mickey Cohen (memorably played by Harvey Keitel in “Bugsy”).
Darabont, writer-director of period prison dramas “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile” as well as “The Mist,” masterminded AMC’s “Walking Dead” series until he was fired last summer.
The proposed series is based on John Buntin’s “L.A. Noir: The Struggle For The Soul Of America’s Most Seductive City.”
