When Chad Stahleski became involved in rebooting the Highlander concept he made no secret of the fact that he saw it as an opportunity to look not just at the idea presented in the original movie, but also aspects of the franchise that came later – including characters or concepts that were introduced in the series.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s news-story revealing that Jeremy Irons is joining the Highlander reboot cast also indicated that the character is a secondary antagonist to Henry Cavill’s titular warrior, but that he might also be the leader of the ‘Watchers’.
This was a group first introduced in the closing episode of the tv show’s first season and it is revealed that they had generationally-monitored the existence of Immortals for thousands of years – pledging to chronicle their stories, but supposedly pledging never to interfere. Of course, such guard-rails never seem too reliable in good dramas and the show introduced various characters that would indeed directly impact the life of Immortals and the series’ star Duncan Macleod (played by Adrian Paul). Notable amongst these were the organisation’s head-figure in Europe Jack Shapiro (Jesse Joe Walsh), Joe Dawson (played by series regular Jim Byrnes who would become one of the show’s most beloved characters), the recurring zealot-like James Horton (deliciously played by Peter Hudson) and that’s before we ever got to Adam Pierson (a lowly researcher in the organisation who was revealed as Methos, the world’s oldest immortal, hiding in plain sight and played by another mainstay Peter Wingfield).
It is not clear whether Irons will essay an established character from the series or a new one, but the ‘antagonist’ role indicates it will be more in the ‘Horton’ vein of someone who also sees Immortals as a potential threat.
