AceShowbiz -

"American Gods" has found its Jesus. Jeremy Davies has been cast in the role for Starz's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's contemporary fantasy novel of the same name that has won Hugo and Nebula Awards.

According to the official character description obtained by EW, "resurrected on Ostara's feast day, Jesus has always been generous in sharing the Easter holiday with the ancient goddess. But the overly empathetic Son of God would be crushed to know that Ostara harbors some deeply buried resentment over the issue."

Davies is known for playing Cpl. Timothy E. Upham in "Saving Private Ryan" and physicist Daniel Faraday on ABC's series "Lost". He was nominated for Emmy Award twice for his role as Dickie Bennett on "Justified", and won in 2012.

"American Gods" follows Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), an ex-con who becomes bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), a con man but in reality one of the older gods who travels across America to gather American manifestations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology to prepare for a battle against the New American Gods.

The cast also includes Kristin Chenoweth as Easter, Gillian Anderson as Media, Bruce Langley as the Technical Boy, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith, Peter Stormare as Czernobog, Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy, Demore Barnes as Mr. Ibis, and Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya.

The highly-anticipated new series will debut sometime in 2017. Bryan Fuller and Michael Green serve as showrunners.