Tim Robbins to Lead ‘Six Feet Under’ Creator’s New HBO Drama

Looks like HBO is bringing Tim Robbins back from The Brink. We still don’t have a name for True Blood and Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball’s new supernatural family drama, but we do know that Tim Robbins will take a lead role alongside Holly Hunter, as the series prepares to roll on its 10-episode order.

So says The Hollywood Reporter, setting Shawshank Redemption star Robbins as the family patriarch of the as-yet-untitled drama, which sees Ball writing and executive producing. The series is described as family-themed, but with at least a touch of the supernatural:

Written by Ball, the yet-untitled series is described as a tragicomic meditation on the complicated forces at work on us all in America today. It focuses on a contemporary multi-racial family. Philosophy professor Greg Bishop and his lawyer wife Audrey Black (Hunter) are socially conscious idealists who decided to build a family by adopting children from Vietnam, Somali and Colombia before having their own child in their 40s. This seemingly perfect, progressive family is in actuality harboring deep rifts. Then, one of the children begins to see things others cannot. Is it mental illness? Or something else?

Following Hunter’s casting as Audrey, Robbins will take the role of Greg, described as “a philosophy professor questioning his life, purpose and the world in which he lives — a world in which it seems the bad guys have won.” Also cast in the series are their three adopted children, played by Jerrika Hinton, Raymond Lee and Daniel Zovatto, along with Sosie Bacon as their biological child.

The untitled series marks the fifth HBO collaboration for Ball, including True Blood, Six Feet Under, the upcoming Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Cinemax’s Banshee. It’s also part of a new two-year deal to continue Ball’s 15-year HBO tenure, so stay tuned for all the latest details.