Calling all The Crown fans, we’ve found your new obsession. Helen Mirren stars Catherine the Great for an upcoming HBO series named after the 18th-century Russian empress.
The network released the first trailer for the four-part limited series arriving later this year, showing Mirren as the formidable monarch during the end of her reign. The drama follows her amid an integral time of her rule – and during her affair with military leader Grigory Potemkin – which “helped shape the future of Russian politics,” per HBO.
This is not Mirren’s first foray into playing royalty. She starred as Queen Elizabeth I in the 2005 HBO miniseries about the late sovereign, and then Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film The Queen, for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress.
Mirren was actually so passionate about the series that she was the one who brought the idea to executive producer David M. Thompson.
“I am very excited by the possibility of embodying a woman from history who grabbed and then wielded great power,” Mirren said of Catherine the Great in a statement this January. “She rewrote the rules of governance by a woman, and succeeded to the extent of having the word Great attached to her name, Catherine the Great.”
Watch the trailer for Catherine the Great below.
This article originally appeared on InStyle Australia.
