FX orders ‘Taboo’ series starring Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy is coming to TV courtesy of the new FX drama series, “Taboo.”

The cable channel ordered up an eight-episode first season of the drama, which is set to star Hardy and was taken from an original story by the actor and his father, Chips Hardy.

“Taboo” is set in 1813 England and tells the story of James Keziah Delaney (played by Hardy), an adventurer who comes back from Africa with a handful of ill-gotten diamonds on a mission of revenge against the people who killed his father. He also sets out to build a shipping empire with the family business, which brings its own pressures and dangers.

Hardy will serve as executive producer of the series, along with Ridley Scott and Steven Knight, who is actually writing it. Knight is the screenwriter of “Eastern Promises,” “Dirty Pretty Things” and wrote and directed “Locke,” also starring Hardy.

Production on the series will take place in the U.K. in mid- to late 2015 with an eye on a 2016 premiere. As a co-production with the BBC, it will air in the U.K. on BBC One.

Getting Hardy in a TV series is quite a feat for FX. The British actor’s big screen career is still heating up, with his turn as Mad Max in George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” set to debut next year. He’s filming “The Revenant” with Leonardo DiCaprio. And he recently starred in the second season of Knight’s BBC series “Peaky Blinders,” which is available in the U.S. on Netflix.

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