Robert De Niro in Talks to Star in Netflix Political Thriller ‘Zero Day,’ His First TV Role

Robert De Niro is in talks to lead the new Netflix political thriller Zero Day, making him one in a long line of movie stars to make the move to the small screen.

While Netflix is notoriously tight-lipped about projects in development, Variety sources confirmed that the political thriller would see De Niro playing a former U.S. president. No word yet on if De Niro will be playing a fictional or real former U.S. president.

According to the report, De Niro would also serve as an executive producer in the series, joining executive producers Noah Oppenheim, Jonathan Glickman, and Eric Newman, who has an overall deal with Netflix. Newman and Oppenheim created the story with Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Schmidt.

De Niro is one of the most prolific and beloved film stars of his generation, having been nominated for an Oscar seven times and winning twice, once for Raging Bull and once for The Godfather II. While there used to be a barrier between film careers and television careers for actors, as streaming takes over, more and more stars who previously focused exclusively on the big screen have moved over to television roles in prestige dramas. De Niro has until now held off on lead TV roles, but he did appear as Bernie Madoff in HBO’s TV movie, The Wizard of Lies, and had guest appearances on both Extras and Saturday Night Live.

Showrunner Newman has a long-running relationship with Netflix, having produced Narcos for the streamer. That series’ success led to him handling the follow-up, Narcos: Mexico. He has another series in the pipeline as well, Griselda, which will star Sofia Vergara as the infamous queen of cocaine, Griselda Blanco. Newman also has producer credits on The Watcher, Painkillers, and True Story.

Zero Day, TBA, Netflix