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WEEK IN WOMEN: Laysla De Oliveira joins Zoe Saldaña in Taylor Sheridan’s LIONESS -Brandy McDonnell reports

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Laysla De Oliveira is starring opposite Zoe Saldaña in the upcoming Paramount+ original series Lioness, from Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water).

Saldaña also is serving as executive producer alongside Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and her production company, Blossom Films.

Produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios, the series is scheduled to begin production this month with Tom Brady (NOS4A2,“Colony) at the helm as executive producer and show runner.

Lioness is based on a real-life CIA program and follows Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a rough-around-the-edges but passionate young Marine recruited to join the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team to help bring down a terrorist organization from within. Saldaña will play Joe, the station chief of the Lioness program tasked with training, managing and leading her female undercover operatives, according to a news release.

De Oliveira was previously selected by The Hollywood Reporter as one of Canada’s rising stars. She can currently be seen starring in Netflix’s Locke & Key, a series based on a Joe Hill comic and produced by Carlton Cuse.

De Oliveira’s film credits include the sci-fi/horror film In the Tall Grass, for director Vincenzo Natali; the Atom Egoyan-directed Guest of Honour, which premiered at the 2019 Venice and Toronto film festivals; her starring role in the indie Acquainted; Code 8, about a super-powered construction worker who falls in with a group of criminals to raise the funds to help his ill mother; and Needle in a Timestack, for director John Ridley. Continue readIng on THE WEEK IN WOMEN

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Brandy McDonnell

Brandy McDonnell writes features and reviews movies, music, events and the arts for The Oklahoman, Oklahoma's statewide newspaper, and NewsOK.com, the state's largest news Web site. Raised on a farm near Lindsay, Okla., she started her journalism career in seventh grade, when she was elected reporter for her school's 4-H Club. Taking her duties seriously, she began submitting stories to The Lindsay News, and worked for the local weekly through high school. She attended Oklahoma State University, where she worked for The Daily O'Collegian and earned her journalism degree with honors. She worked for three years at small Oklahoma dailies The Edmond Sun and Shawnee News-Star. In 2002, she joined The Oklahoman as a features reporter, writing about movies, the arts, events, families and nonprofits. She moved to The Oklahoman's entertainment desk in 2007. In 2004, she won a prestigious Journalism Fellowship in Child & Family Policy from the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Along with her membership in AWFJ, she also is a founding member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. Brandy writes The Week In Women blog for AWFJ.org.