André Hol­land joins Damien Chazelle’s Net­flix series

Damien Chazelle​‘s lat­est fea­ture, the moon land­ing dra­ma First Man, went over like the first dozen pro­to­types of the rock­et­ship that even­tu­al­ly brought Neil Arm­strong into space. To some, his recent deci­sion to make his next project a minis­eries for Net­flix may look like a time-out from moviemaking.

But if you’re going to be stuck in the small-screen cor­ner to think about what you’ve done, you couldn’t find a bet­ter com­pan­ion than André Hol­land.

Net­flix has announced that The Eddy, Chazelle’s return to the musi­cal genre that made him a house­hold name, has found its first star. The eight-episode series revolves around a jazz club in mod­ern-day Paris, where spir­its stay high even if money’s tight. (Chazelle will shoot on loca­tion in France, too.)

Hol­land por­trays Elliot Udo, a cel­e­brat­ed pianist in his home of New York and the own­er of The Eddy. Aside from a fail­ing busi­ness, he’s got a lot on his plate: a tur­bu­lent roman­tic rela­tion­ship with his lead singer, a fif­teen-year-old daugh­ter mate­ri­al­iz­ing out of the blue, and a whole uni­verse of new respon­si­bil­i­ties as her father.

He’s the only cast mem­ber locked in at present, but with this sub­ject mat­ter and Chazelle’s involve­ment, we may safe­ly make a few assump­tions. Audi­ences can count on daz­zling pro­duc­tion design, weight­less musi­cal num­bers, a heart­felt valen­tine to the beau­ty of per­for­mance – it’s all just the order of the day for the guy who brought us La La Land.

But for some view­ers, Hol­land will be the real draw here. He first proved his effort­less charm as Moon­light​‘s one that got away, then wowed movie­go­ers yet again with his tour de force turn as a quick-wit­ted sports agent in High Fly­ing Bird ear­li­er this year. Clear­ly, he’s well-liked at Net­flix, and it’s not hard to see why.

The Eddy has yet to set a release date on Netflix.