Andrew Scott Goes From Hot Priest To Mysterious Conman In Netflix's Ripley Trailer

We've come a long way since Andrew Scott chewed up the scenery and forever altered our brain chemistry during those early "Sherlock" days, haven't we? The ultra-charismatic actor once best-known for his role as Moriarty has since played another bad guy (to somewhat diminishing returns) in 2015's "Spectre," stole all our collective hearts and minds in Prime's "Fleabag" series opposite Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and further doubled down on his romantic leading man status most recently in "All of Us Strangers." Now, apparently, the time has come to go full brooding antihero.

"Ripley" always felt like a slam-dunk adaptation of author Patricia Highsmith's various books following the character of Tom Ripley, especially following in the footsteps of the 1999 movie "The Talented Mr. Ripley" starring Matt Damon in the title role. Yet even garnering multiple Academy Award nominations and proving a hit at the box office at the time does little to protect the powers that be from taking yet another swing in the prestige-friendly medium of television — though that debut is now taking place on Netflix following Showtime's decision to offload its original project. Will this become just the latest to suffer the same fate as so many Netflix acquisitions over the years, or can the power of Scott (and his, ah, passionate fanbase) singlehandedly will "Ripley" to breakout success?

Whatever the case may be, the official teaser released by the streamer today certainly projects confidence, the likes of which you can only appreciate in the stark tones of black-and-white cinematography. Check it out above!

Look, compared to the likes of Jason Bourne or Jack Reacher or Ethan Hunt, "Tom Ripley" doesn't exactly strike me as ranking near the top of cool-sounding names in thriller-based fiction ... but what do I know? The teaser for Netflix's "Ripley" clearly has other ideas, largely eschewing basic things like establishing plot (it is a teaser, admittedly) in favor of having multiple characters repeat the name Tom Ripley. That's one way to get general audiences to get those neurons firing and force them to connect the dots to "The Talented Mr. Ripley" without actually saying that this is based on the same pre-existing material, I suppose.

In any case, "Ripley" stars Andrew Scott as the title character along with Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood, Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf, and more. The series is created by Steven Zaillian (the Academy Award-winning writer best known for writing "Schindler's List" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," along with creating the HBO series "The Night Of"), who serves as producer, showrunner, writer, and director. "Ripley" will be comprised of eight total episodes and premiere on Netflix on April 4, 2024. Its synopsis reads:

Tom Ripley, a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son to return home. Tom's acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder. The limited series drama is based on Patricia Highsmith's bestselling Tom Ripley novels.