ITV has commissioned Nightswimming, a thriller starring Lennie James, written by Harry and Jack Williams and produced by their company, Two Brothers Pictures. ITV’s Director of Drama, Polly Hill, commissioned the series.
James plays Matthew, who returns to his home in Portugal years after being convicted of brutally murdering his wife and two teenage sons in their beachfront home, an attack that occurred while Matthew was performing his nightly ritual of swimming in the ocean. Weaving between past and present, the series follows Matthew as he mounts his own investigation into the crime that destroyed his life, confronting old friends, revisiting broken relationships, and interrogating the people who originally built the case against him. As he slowly uncovers what actually happened a decade earlier, he struggles to prove his own innocence after discovering someone much closer to home helped put him away.
James called the role one of the kinds of characters he’s drawn to most, describing Matthew as “full of complexity, contradiction and conviction,” and praised the project as “top notch storytelling.” Harry and Jack Williams, whose Two Brothers Pictures credits include The Missing, Baptiste, The Tourist, and Liar, said they relished writing a “small-town thriller with a morally murky edge,” adding they’re thrilled to see what James brings to Matthew once filming begins. Hill echoed that enthusiasm, calling the series “unmissable” and noting that beneath its twists sits a man trapped in “a nightmare of his own.”
The series marks one of James’s first major leading roles since winning a BAFTA for the BBC’s adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s Mr Loverman. He’s also known for playing Morgan Jones across multiple seasons of The Walking Dead, as well as roles in Mayor of Kingstown, Save Me, and Line of Duty. His previous ITV credit dates back to 2009’s The Prisoner, opposite Ian McKellen and Ruth Wilson. Nightswimming also arrives as James juggles an unusually full slate: he’s set to appear in the final season of Mayor of Kingstown, premiering January 15, 2027, is attached to star in an adaptation of Anxious People, and recently lent his voice to both 007 First Light and Audible’s full-cast Harry Potter audio editions, voicing the Sorting Hat.
Polly Hill oversees production for ITV, with Harry and Jack Williams executive producing alongside Daisy Mount, Sarah Hammond, and James. Cleo Hetherington serves as co-executive producer, Georgina Lowe as producer, and Kelly Valentine-Hendry as casting director. Filming begins in Portugal in spring 2027, with Banijay Rights handling global distribution.