EXCLUSIVE: Kristoffer Polaha (Life Unexpected) has joined the MGM+ series American Hostage, starring Jon Hamm and Giovanni Ribisi, as a series regular.
Polaha plays Dick Hall, the president of Meridian Mortgage who is taken hostage by Tony Kiritsis (Ribisi), who publicly accuses him on being a greedy and cutthroat monster. But the real human being is more complicated than that.
An anthology series greenlighted earlier this year, American Hostage is based on the first season of the scripted podcast of the same name, also starring Hamm. The show is a psychological thriller whose ’70s-set first season tells the harrowing true story of Fred Heckman (Hamm), a beloved Indianapolis radio reporter who is thrust into the middle of a life-or-death crisis when hostage-taker Tony Kiritsis demands to be interviewed on his popular radio news program.
Shooting this fall in Winnipeg, Canada, the show is produced by Sony Pictures Television. It’s co-created and executive produced by Shawn Ryan (The Night Agent, S.W.A.T.) and Eileen Myers (Big Love, Mad Dogs) and also stars Mireille Enos and William Jackson Harper. Exec producers include Ryan, Hamm, Connie Tavel, Marney Hochman, Sharon Hoffman, Shawn Christensen, and Gabriel Mason.
Strangely, this isn’t the only current project telling Kiritsis’ story — another is Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, a film starring Bill Skarsgård as Kiritsis. Pic has been acquired by new U.S. distributor Row K Entertainment following its recent premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Best known for starring in The CW’s Life Unexpected, Polaha’s other TV credits include Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ series Landman, Harlan Coben’s Shelter at Prime Video, Get Shorty opposite Ray Romano and Chris O’Dowd, and the limited series Condor, where he starred alongside William Hurt and Max Irons.He also co-starred with Rainn Wilson in the Fox series Backstrom and had a multi-season recurring role opposite Hamm on AMC’s Mad Men.
On the feature side, Polaha has been seen in the likes of Wonder Woman 1984 and Jurassic World Dominion, as well as numerous indies. He is repped by Sugar23 and Gersh.
