TORONTO — Rainn Wilson is moving to Vancouver.
The actor is set to start work at the end of March on Backstrom, a new series for Fox.
Wilson, best known for playing Dwight Schrute on The Office, will star as Detective Everett Backstrom, described as “an offensive, irascible detective who tries and fails to change his self-destructive behaviour.”
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The series, set in Portland and based on the book series of the same name by Leif G.W. Persson, follows Backstrom and his team from the Serious Crimes Unit.
Fox picked up Backstrom after CBS backed out. A pilot episode, co-starring Dennis Haysbert, was shot in Vancouver last March.
The network has ordered 13 episodes.
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“I couldn’t be more thrilled to get a chance to dig into Detective Everett Backstrom,” Wilson said in a statement. “For an actor it’s rare to get a crack at a role of such intelligence, humor and complexity. He’s a delightfully disheveled misanthrope with a twisted, brilliant mind and a heart of barbed wire.”
Wilson, 48, has worked in Canada before — he made the 2008 comedy The Rocker in Toronto.
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