Michael Shannon And Vincent Piazza Join HBO’s Boardwalk Empire

Michael Shannon has been cast to co-star in Martin Scorsese’s HBO pilot Boardwalk Empire. The show, written by Terrence Winter and to be directed by Scorsese, centers on Nucky Johnson (Steve Buscemi), who runs a liquor distribution ring at the onset of Prohibition, and Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), a ruthless World War I veteran and a low-level flunky for Nucky.

Shannon will play Van Alden, a dedicated senior agent with the Treasury Department who with his team has been charged with controlling bootlegging in the Prohibition era. Also cast in the project, based on Nelson Johnson’s book about the early 20th century origins of Atlantic City, N.J., is Vincent Piazza as a young Lucky Luciano. Piazza’s Luciano is a young associate of Arnold Rothstein, a rich, blunt New York businessman who wants in on Nucky’s liquor production.