On the heels of winning his second directing Oscar for Life Of Pi, Ang Lee will make his television directorial debut with FX‘s high-profile drama pilot Tyrant, from Homeland executive producers Howard Gordon and Gideon Raff and Six Feet Under alum Craig Wright. This represents a major coup for FX and Tyrant producers Fox 21 and FX Prods as Lee had been approached numerous times for pilots, but this is the first one he has committed to. In addition to directing, Lee is executive producing Tyrant, his first project following Life Of Pi. It tells the story of an unassuming American family drawn into the workings of a turbulent Middle Eastern nation. The series was created by Raff and developed by Gordon and Wright. Raff wrote the pilot, which comes from Gordon’s 20th TV-based company Teakwood Lane. “Ang Lee has demonstrated time and again an ability to present characters with such depth and specificity that they reveal the universal human condition,” said FX president John Landgraf. “No one could be a more perfect film maker to bring Howard Gordon, Gideon Raff, and Craig Wright’s Tyrant to indelible life.”

Gordon, Raff and Wright also executive produce in association with Keshet Broadcasting. If Tyrant goes to series, Wright will serve as showrunner. With a huge commitment and A-list creative auspices, Tyrant already was fully expected to go to series, something Landgraf alluded to in January. (Backup scripts had already been commissioned.) Lee’s arrival likely sealed the deal. “The fact that the brilliant Ang Lee has signed on to direct his first project for television speaks to the extraordinary nature of Tyrant,” said Fox 21 president Bert Salke. Production of Tyrant is tentatively slated to begin this summer.

Tyrant keeps Lee in the Fox family. His last four movies, Brokeback Mountain; Lust, Caution; Taking Woodstock and Life Of Pi were all produced/distributed by divisions of Twentieth Century Fox, a sibling to both FX and Fox 21. Lee has won three Oscars, for directing Brokeback Mountain and Life Of Pi and his Best Foreign-Language Film winner, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. His latest film, Life Of Pi, won the most Oscars this year, four, and has grossed more than $600 million worldwide.

Tyrant tells the story of an unassuming American family drawn into the workings of a turbulent Middle Eastern nation. Bassam “Barry” Al Fayeed (Adam Rayner), the youngest son of a war-torn country’s controversial dictator, returns to his homeland after a self-imposed 20-year exile in America for his nephew’s wedding.



Upon his return, Barry is immediately thrown back into the familial and national politics of his youth. As he braces himself to confront the stark realities of his father and older brother Jamal’s (Ashraf Barhom) harsh rule, Barry is unable and unwilling to make his all-American family understand his unease over returning home. His wife, Molly (Jennifer Finnigan), struggling to comprehend her husband’s apprehension, uncovers a romantic history involving Leila (Moran Atias), Jamal’s beautiful wife. Emma (Anne Winters), their 15-year-old daughter, adores her father and shares his disdain for the extravagances of her extended family. Meanwhile, their son, 16-year-old Sammy (Noah Silver), revels in the lavish lifestyle their “royal” status brings, but dangerously tests cultural divides with his poorly disguised interest in handsome family bodyguard Abdul (Mehdi Dehbi).

Barry’s only warm memory of his childhood, boyhood friend Fauzi (Fares Fares), wants nothing to do with him. Fauzi is now a journalist, whose reports on the abuses of the Al Fayeed rule resulted in Fauzi's arrest and torture. Barry must now confront the life he once fled. With his father's health in decline, everyone – Jamal, their mother Amira (Alice Krige), their father's top advisor Yussef (Salim Daw), and even easygoing U.S. diplomat John Tucker (Justin Kirk) – expects him to assume a more active role in both the family and the regime.

Season One - Episode Descriptions

Episode 1 / Production #178 - "Pilot" (Airs June 24, 10:00 pm e/p) - Barry Al-Fayeed is a California pediatrician who also happens to be the second son of a Middle Eastern dictator. Barry reluctantly agrees to return home with his American family for his nephew's wedding. Events thrust him into the complex and turbulent growing pains of a nation straining to break free from dictatorial rule. Written by Gideon Raff; directed by David Yates.

From Emmy(R) and Golden Globe(R) Award-winning Executive Producer/Showunner Howard Gordon (24, Homeland), Tyrant tells the story of an unassuming American family drawn into the workings of a turbulent Middle Eastern nation. Bassam "Barry" Al Fayeed, the younger son of the dictator of a war-torn nation, ends a self-imposed 20-year exile to return to his homeland, accompanied by his American wife and children, for his nephew's wedding. Barry's reluctant homecoming leads to a dramatic clash of cultures as he is thrown back into the familial and national politics of his youth. The cast includes Adam Rayner, Jennifer Finnigan, Ashraf Barhom, Moran Atias, Noah Silver, Anne Winters, Fares Fares, Salim Daw, Justin Kirk, Jordana Spiro, Mehdi Dehbi, and Alice Krige. Howard Gordon, Craig Wright, Glenn Gordon Caron, Gideon Raff, David Yates, Michael Lehmann, Peter Noah, and Avi Nir are Executive Producers. Tyrant was created by Gideon Raff and it is produced by Fox 21 and FX Productions. FX has ordered 10 episodes of Tyrant for its first season which will air Tuesday nights at 10 PM ET/PT.

And then there was Raff, with whom Gordon's partnership had unraveled during the year-and-a-half period. It had reached a point where their visions for the show were so different — Raff wanted to make a heightened family soap opera; Gordon felt that a family drama would need a political component to succeed — that a collaboration no longer made sense. Gordon's experience and U.S. network sensibility made him the clear choice to continue, though Raff still reads scripts and remains in touch with many of the actors. "I just felt at a certain point that my creative input wasn't being heard," says Raff, who since has turned his day-to-day focus to another Israel-set series, USA's Dig. "I had the option of either staying and arguing, arguing, arguing about the vision, or leaving the show in the very capable hands of Howard Gordon."

There are few people in the television business with a better résumé or reputation than Gordon, who cut his teeth on The X-Files before establishing himself as a go-to producer on 24 and, later, on Homeland, which he and his Princeton pal Alex Gansa adapted from Raff's Israeli series Prisoners of War. (Given the demands of Tyrant, Gordon no longer is hands-on with Homeland, nor is he in the weeds with Fox's 24 reboot or TNT's upcoming Legends.) Those who have worked with him attribute his success — along with his eleventh-hour rewrites — to an almost unparalleled work ethic and phenomenally high standards. "He wants to hold everything very tightly," says 20th Century Fox Television CEO Dana Walden, who adds: "My role is to constantly push him to let go a little bit and suffer 10 percent of the perfection for picking up 30 percent of the benefit of [more] time in the process."
Although Gordon and Raff downplay any bad blood, those who know both men describe a clash in styles. As one source involved with Tyrant put it, "If you're the workaholic perfectionist (Gordon), the person who doesn't suffer from those attributes (Raff) is going to be very frustrating." Other sources point to differences in experience (AFI-trained Raff has no history running a U.S. show) and to lingering friction from Homeland, for which Raff often is credited as a creator despite having no day-to-day involvement in the Showtime adaptation.

(The fictional Abbudin’s flag is essentially Syria’s with one extra star, and the likenesses between the Al-Fayeed and Assad dynasties are similarly close.)