Taylor Sheridan on the set of Yellowstone Season 4.

‘Lioness’: Everything We Know About Taylor Sheridan’s New Spy Series

Yellowstone mastermind Taylor Sheridan has a new show on the horizon, Lioness, featuring another stacked cast of A-list actors. Nicole Kidman, Zoe Saldaña, and Morgan Freeman appear in the series that will follow the struggles of three CIA agents as they work to dismantle a dangerous terrorist organization from within.

Try Paramount+ FREE for a week. Subscribe here to watch your favorite shows.

In June 2022, Sheridan assumed the role of showrunner. This was after Thomas Brady (Hell on Wheels) decided to depart due to diverging creative views. Production was set to start in September 2022, so Sheridan seized control and decided he would complete the series himself. On top of that, Sheridan has multiple shows in the works. This includes Yellowstone’s fifth season and its prequel 1923; Mayor of Kingstown, starring Jeremy Renner; Sylvester Stallone’s mob drama Tulsa King; Land Man, Billy Bob Thornton’s upcoming series; as well as plans for a Bass Reeves show featuring David Oyelowo.

Paramount+ has yet to announce a release date for the much-awaited series Lioness. However, here is all the information we have on this buzz-worthy show. Laysla De Oliveira (Locke & Key) is set to lead the cast as Cruz Manuelos. She’s a Marine enlistee recruited by the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team with the mission of bringing down an insidious terrorist organization. Accompanying her will be Zoe Saldaña who plays Joe. She serves as Manuelos’ station chief in charge of teaching and training these female operatives for their daunting task ahead.

Nicole Kidman is set to play a key part in ‘Lioness’

Nicole Kidman plays a vital role in the series. According to Variety, she plays “the CIA’s Senior Supervisor who has had a long career of playing the politics game. She must juggle the trappings of being a woman in the high-ranking intelligence community, a wife that longs for the attention she herself can’t even give, and a mentor to someone veering suspiciously close to the same rocky road she’s found herself on.” Kidman even shared a video from the set with Zoe Saldaña.

To further intensify the anticipation of this new show, Deadline revealed that Morgan Freeman was cast in the show. Freeman will be joining as Secretary of State Edwin Mullins. Additionally, Jill Wagner, Dave Annable, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan and Jonah Wharton have also been cast according to Variety. To top it off Kidman and Saldaña are set to become executive producers for this highly anticipated series.

Paramount boasts that their series is based on an actual CIA program. However, the Lioness Engagement Team has a different history in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Lioness Program, documented on the United States Marine Corps’ official website, provided a way for American service members to search female insurgents suspected of smuggling contraband. “Since Muslim tradition does not allow a man to touch a woman who is not related to them and knowing American military personnel would not search them unless a female service member was present, insurgents began to use women to smuggle contraband,” Lance Cpl. Nicholas M. Dunn explained. “To counter this threat, the Marine Corps developed the Lioness Program, which was formed [in 2004] to provide culturally-sensitive searches on Iraqi women.”