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Netflix has officially announced “KENNEDY,” an eight-episode drama series that will star Michael Fassbender as Joe Kennedy Sr., marking a significant addition to the actor’s increasingly selective television portfolio. Based on Fredrik Logevall’s acclaimed biography “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956,” the series promises to peel back the mythological veneer surrounding America’s most storied political dynasty and reveal the raw human ambition, struggle, and tragedy that defined them.

For Fassbender, this represents a notable shift in his recent career trajectory. After dominating the big screen with intense performances in films like STEVE JOBS, ALIEN: COVENANT, and THE SNOWMAN, the German-Irish actor has been more discerning about his projects in recent years. His appearance in David Fincher’s THE KILLER in 2023 signaled his willingness to embrace streaming platforms for the right material, and “KENNEDY” appears to be another carefully chosen vehicle that allows him to sink his teeth into a complex, morally ambiguous patriarch. The role of Joe Kennedy Sr., the controversial businessman and political operator who orchestrated his family’s rise to power through a combination of wealth, cunning, and ruthless determination, seems tailor-made for Fassbender’s ability to portray charismatic yet deeply flawed men.

The series will launch in the 1930s, chronicling Joe and Rose Kennedy’s improbable journey from ambitious strivers to American royalty, following their nine children including the rebellious Jack Kennedy, who would struggle to emerge from the shadow of his older brother Joe Jr. Showrunner Sam Shaw describes the Kennedy saga as existing somewhere between Shakespeare and THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, a deliberately provocative framing that acknowledges both the family’s genuine historical significance and the soap operatic quality of their endless cycles of triumph and disaster. The assassinations of JFK and Robert Kennedy, the tragic death of JFK Jr. alongside his wife and sister-in-law in that 1999 plane crash, and the countless other misfortunes that gave birth to whispers of a Kennedy curse have all contributed to a narrative that feels almost too dramatically perfect to be real.

Shaw’s vision, drawing from Logevall’s nuanced biography, aims to strip away the mythology and expose the human strivings and burdens underneath, using the Kennedy story as a lens through which to examine not just mid-century American ambition but our current moment and how we arrived here. It’s an ambitious undertaking that will need Fassbender’s considerable talents to anchor it, and if his recent choices are any indication, he wouldn’t have signed on unless the material warranted the commitment. The series has no release date yet but stands apart from Ryan Murphy’s upcoming “American Love Story,” which will focus specifically on JFK Jr., suggesting that Netflix is betting heavily on America’s endless fascination with the family that came closest to establishing a modern political dynasty before fate intervened.