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'Gaslit': Allison Tolman, Chris Messina join Starz's Watergate series

Allison Tolman will star in the Starz drama "Gaslit." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI
1 of 5 | Allison Tolman will star in the Starz drama "Gaslit." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

July 1 (UPI) -- Starz is adding five new cast members to the series Gaslit.

The network said in a press release Thursday that Allison Tolman, J.C. MacKenzie, Chris Bauer, Hamish Linklater and Chris Messina will have recurring roles in the upcoming drama.

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The new cast members join previously announced stars Julia Roberts and Sean Penn.

Gaslit centers on Martha Mitchell's role in exposing the Watergate scandal. Mitchell was a socialite and the wife of president Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell (Penn).

Despite her party affiliation, Michell was the first person to publicly sound the alarm on Nixon's involvement in Watergate, causing Nixon's presidency and her personal life to unravel.

"Gaslit is a modern take on Watergate that focuses on the untold stories and forgotten characters of the scandal -- from Nixon's bumbling, opportunistic subordinates to the deranged zealots aiding and abetting their crimes, to the tragic whistleblowers who would eventually bring the whole rotten enterprise crashing down," an official synopsis reads.

Tolman will play Winnie McLendon, the D.C. journalist who would ultimately become Mitchell's biographer. MacKenzie portrays Howard Hunt, a former CIA agent who helps G. Gordon Liddy execute the bungled Watergate break-in, while Bauer will play James McCord, the head of the Mitchells' security team and one of the Watergate burglars.

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Linklater will portray Jeb Magruder, a high-level bureaucrat behind Watergate and John Mitchell's right-hand man. Messina plays Agent Angelo Lano, an FBI agent taked with the Watergate break-in.

Gaslit is created and executive produced by Robbie Pickering (Mr. Robot). Matt Ross will direct and executive produce.

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