Elisabeth Moss to Play ‘Typhoid Mary’ in BBC America’s ‘Fever’

Elisabeth Moss
Maarten de Boer/Contour by Getty Images for TV Guide Magazine
Elisabeth Moss is developing period miniseries 'Fever' for BBC America

Elisabeth Moss is burning up the screen in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and returning for a new season of Sundance TV’s Top of the Lake in September. Now BBC America is the latest network to catch the bug.

BBC America announced Tuesday that it will partner with Moss and Annapurna Television on developing the miniseries Fever, based on Mary Beth Keane’s novel about “Typhoid Mary.” Moss will star in and executive produce the project.

Fever tells the story of Mary Mallon, an immigrant living in New York City in the early 1900s, who was the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever and was believed to have spread the disease across the city.

“I look forward to telling this story about one of the most infamous women in America, ‘Typhoid Mary,’ a woman whose true tale has never been told,” Moss said in a release. “She was an immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York, a time of huge change and progress in America. She was incredibly unique, stubborn, ambitious and in fierce denial of any wrongdoing until her death, where she lived out her days imprisoned on an island just off of the Bronx in NY. She is incredibly complicated, something I seem to enjoy playing.”