Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: ER alumna Parminder Nagra is set for a lead role on Fox’s pilot Alcatraz. Also in negotiations to join in the J.J. Abrams-produced pilot is veteran Robert Forster. The drama project, from Warner Bros. TV, Abrams’ Bad Robot and executive producer/showrunner Liz Sarnoff, chronicles the efforts of a cop (Sarah Jones) and team of FBI agents tracking down a group of missing Alcatraz prisoners and guards who reappear in the present day. Sam Neill was just cast as Emerson Hauser, a head of a government agency. Nagra will play his lab technician, Lucy. Forster, who was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in Jackie Brown, will play Ray Archer, a retired detective who is now owner/bartender of a cop hangout bar. Following her breakthrough performance in the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham, Nagra joined NBC’s medical drama ER, on which she co-starred for six seasons, until the show’s end in April 2009. She is with Gersh and 3 Arts. Forster, who recurred on NBC’s Heroes as Peter and Nathan Petrelli’s dad Arthur, is with Don Buchwald & Assoc.

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