Casting: Katja Herbers gets Evil; Birds of Prey snatches another; Cipher adds two stars

The new CBS pilot Evil has found its female lead. Westworld actress Katja Herbers (shown above) has signed on to play Kristen Benoist, a forensic psychologist who joins forces with a church-sponsored team who investigate unexplained phenomena, per The Hollywood Reporter.

The show, which is similar in tone to The X-Files, comes from creators Robert and Michelle King, best known as the team behind the CBS drama The Good Wife and its spinoff The Good Fight.

Herbers showed up partway through Westworld's second season as Emily, the estranged daughter of Ed Harris' William — better known as the Man in Black. While her character appeared to have been killed, she showed up again during the finale's mind-bending post-credits scene.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Next up, director Cathy Yan's DC movie Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) has added another cast member. Deadline reports that Charlene Amoia has been cast to play Maria Bertinelli, the mother of Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Huntress and the wife of gangster Franco Bertinelli.

While she's best known for her recurring role as Wendy the waitress on How I Met Your Mother, she's appeared in The CW's The Flash as well as American Horror Story.

Amoia will appear alongside Ewan McGregor as Black Mask, Chris Messina as Victor Zsasz, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya, and of course Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

Production is currently underway on Birds of Prey, which will take over theaters on Feb. 7, 2020.

(via Deadline)

Finally, the SYFY pilot Cipher has found its two teenage leads. The Hollywood Reporter has word that Gabriel Bateman and Kyla-Drew Simmons will be joining the cast, which follows a teenage gamer who ends up with top-secret military technology in his brain.

Bateman, who's also slated to appear in the Child's Play reboot, will play Asa, the main character. Simmons will play Annie, his friend who he meets inside a game. While she’s a master of the game itself, she has little understanding of the outside world.

Strange Angel producer Allison Miller will executive-produce as well as write the script, which finds the two characters at the center of a brewing war over AI itself.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)