Good Lord, Rafael Casal has a new role…

The 34-year-old half-Latino actor has landed a a recurring role opposite Ethan Hawke in Showtime‘s The Good Lord Bird based on James McBride’s novel, from Blumhouse Television.

The Good Lord Birdis told from the point of view of Onion (Joshua Johnson-Lionel), a fictional enslaved boy, who is part of John Brown’s (Hawke) motley crew of abolitionist soldiers during the time of Bleeding Kansas, eventually participating in the famous 1859 raid on the Army depot at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s raid failed to initiate the slave revolt he intended, but was the instigating event that started the Civil War.

Casal will play Cook, one of John Brown’s new recruits, a rascally, privileged adventurer who thinks Brown’s plan is crazy but proclaims it “sounds fun.”

Hawke is co-writing and executive producing The Good Lord Birdwith award-winning author and producer Mark Richard. Filmmaker Albert Hughesalso will serve as executive producer and will make his television directorial debut helming multiple episodes.

Casal appeared opposite Hugh Jackmanin Cory Finley’s feature Bad Education, which premiered at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival. He can currently be seen as Tophat in Nickelodeon’s remake of Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Casal co-wrote, produced and starred in the feature film Blindspotting, and is currently working on the television adaptation, which is in development at Starz. 

He’s also working with Lionsgate on his directorial debut for his screenplay, First Sight.

Casal is the co-founder and artistic director of New York City’s Public Theater’s Bars Workshop. 

The eight-part limited event series will premiere on Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 10:00 pm ET/PT.