Trailer Watch: Claire Danes Investigates a Local Legend in “The Essex Serpent,” Clio Barnard Directs

Trailers

Trailer Watch: Claire Danes Investigates a Local Legend in “The Essex Serpent,” Clio Barnard Directs

“I’d rather believe in a creature that people have actually seen than an invisible god. Is that blasphemy?” Claire Danes asks a pastor in a new trailer for “The Essex Serpent.” The three-time Emmy winner returns to the small screen in the Apple TV+ adaptation of Sarah Perry’s bestselling novel, a story set in Victorian England about a London widow who moves to Essex to investigate a mythical serpent.

Cora (Danes) is convinced that there’s truth to the lore surrounding the serpent. A local pastor she befriends, Will (Tom Hiddleston), maintains that it is “an invention — a symptom of the times we live in.”

When tragedy strikes, locals accuse Cora of attracting the serpent, and she’s gutted that Will doesn’t come to her defense. “I’m their pastor,” he explains. But the pair have formed an intense bond — and the spot suggests that it is far from platonic.

Danes won two Emmys for “Homeland,” which concluded its eighth and final season in 2020. She also won an Emmy for “Temple Grandin.”

Clio Barnard, whose feature credits include “Ali & Ava,” “Dark River,” and “The Selfish Giant,” directed “The Essex Serpent” and Anna Symon (“Mrs. Wilson”) penned the adaptation. The series hits Apple TV+ May 13.