Con O'Neill Confirmed to Join Netflix's 'Legends' as Filming in Liverpool Continues

Netflix initially announced it was commissioning Neil Forsyth's Legends at the 2024 Edinburgh Film Festival, more than six months before the principal cast was confirmed. Filming on the series, which is based on the real-life decision by Her Majesty's Customs & Excise department in the late 1990s to charge ordinary employees with coming up with alternate personas, and going undercover in some of the most notorious drug cartels in order to stop the flow of illegal narcotics into the U.K.

If this seems rather desperate, consider what the British government faced in 1997. Not a single penny of The Gold (Forsyth's last hit series) had been recovered, and instead, one of the most expensive areas of London was rising up along the docks. Computization was coming to government agencies, including the post office, whose main program did not work. This is all ongoing while the tabloids were obsessed with Princess Diana, former U.K. Queen-to-be, dating a man, Dodi Fayed, who was not white and whose father owned department stores, breathlessly asking if she was going to get remarried until the froth took a deadly turn, killing both Di and Dodi. Of course, this escalating crisis operated unnoticed by the public.

Legends is set in London and Liverpool, and since switching to the coastal city, the series has added three new cast members to the roster: POBS favorite Con O’Neill (Our Flag Means Death), plus up-and-comers Paddy Rowan (Time) and Robbie O’Neill (Adolescence)*.