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Sam Neill cast as Lang Hancock

Key cast confirmed for Nine's Gina Rinehart drama, now trimmed to a 2hr telemovie.

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2014-08-17_0047Sam Neill will play Lang Hancock in Nine’s upcoming Gina Rinehart drama.

Originally titled Gina as a 4 hour miniseries, it will now be a 2 hour telemovie titled Gina v Rose: The House of Hancock.

Last week it was revealed Mandy McElhinney would play Gina Rinehart.

Peta Sergant, best known for her role in Foxtel’s Satisfaction, will play Rose Hancock. Sergant is a Malaysian-born Australian who has also appeared in Winners and Losers, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, The Originals and Iron Sky.

Photo: Collin Stark

Robert Coleby plays Frank Rinehart and Anne Louise Lambert (still best known as Picnic at Hanging Rock‘s Miranda) as Hope Hancock

The telemovie now centres around the feuding Gina Rinehart and Rose Porteous, all but abandoning Lang Hancock’s discovery of the world’s largest iron ore deposit in 1952 and Gina’s recent battles with her own children.

Set primarily in the period 1980-2002, Gina v Rose: The House of Hancock tells the epic true story of the Hancock dynasty and the love triangle that emerged between the father Lang (Neill), his daughter Gina (McElhinney) and his beautiful Filipina housekeeper Rose (Sergeant).

Lang and Gina are inseparable, the perfect team, and Gina is confident she will soon inherit the family business. But their relationship is rocked by a series of tumultuous events.

First, Lang is furious when Gina marries a man old enough to be her father. Then Lang’s beloved wife Hope dies. In an attempt to help her ailing father, Gina employs a new housekeeper to get him back on track, Rose Lacson from the Philippines, not realising this will be a decision that will tear their family apart.

What follows is an increasingly bitter public feud lasting two decades: filled with forbidden love, murder accusations, drug charges, illegitimate children, court cases and epic betrayal, all played out in the media, and all for Gina to retain control over the staggering Hancock family fortune.

Filming for the CJZ produced drama will begin in Sydney and WA at the end of the month.

It was previously announced to air in 2014.

8 Responses

  2. I’ve got nothing against Peta Sergeant but it looks like the producers and Channel 9 have indeed “white-washed” this casting. I believe Peta’s background is half Malaysian and half Caucasian Aussie and the role of Rose is so intrinsically Filipino that they really have got is so wrong this time. Being of Filipino heritage, I’m really affronted and offended that they’ve ‘white-washed’ this role and I’m generally sick of the lack of courage Australian networks and producers have when it comes to casting authentic and genuine multicultural talent. I know Jay La’gaia and Firass Dirani brought this issue up around a year ago or so ago.

  5. I hope they just concentrate on telling a good story and try not to cover everything. The INXS biopic showed promise but in the end had poor characterisations and ended up forgettable.

  6. All sounds tacky and sad. Perhaps most viewers will be too young to remember Lang Hancock, one of the most obnoxious, unlikeable and offensive businessman Australia has ever produced. Gina’s bizarre comments on the world sound positively liberal compared to her father’s. There will be no “epic true story”. Gina is one of Australia’s most litigious business woman. All up a sorry tale.

  7. “Originally titled Gina as a 4 hour miniseries, it will now be a 2 hour telemovie titled Gina v Rose: The House of Hancock”

    I’ve just gone from being a bit interested in this to being not a bit interested. I think 4 hours over 2 nights, encompassing a wider narrative would have worked better. Now that they seem to have gone down the MKR path, I’ll wait and see what the reception is like before committing some time to it.

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