Peacock's Tiger King show has found its Saff

Peacock is still going forward with that Tiger King show despite nobody truly caring about all the drama between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin anymore. That’s so early pandemic, Peacock. But on the bright side, the casting choices have been pretty promising. It was announced that John Cameron Mitchell will play the mullet-sporting Tiger King himself, and Nat Wolff will play his late husband, Travis Maldonado. Now, Peacock has announced another addition to the cast. Saff, fan-favorite and former employee of Mr. Exotic, will be played by newcomer Lex Mayson, as announced by The Hollywood Reporter.

The actor is non-binary just like Saff (who uses male pronouns but doesn’t identify as a trans man) and has upcoming roles in Batwoman and Woke. They’re a Black and Chinese cosplay enthusiast, with an Instagram dedicated to their many cosplay looks.

Other recent additions to the cast are Dennis Quaid as Rick Kirkham, who was the producer of Exotic’s reality show, Brian Van Holt, who is playing another one of Exotic’s former employees, John Reinke, and Sam Keeley, who is playing Exotic’s ex-husband, John Finlay.

Though the show is named Tiger King, it’s also going to be heavily focused on Exotic’s nemesis, Baskin (Kate McKinnon). Much like the Netflix docuseries and the podcast Joe Exotic: Tiger King about their rivalry, this show will be about Baskin trying to shut down Exotic’s park, where he lets people get up close to tigers for profit. We’ll revisit the wild antics between both of them, as they try to one-up each other, and the investigation into the rumors that Baskin killed her first husband. There’s no official release date yet, but the more Peacock waits to release this, the less people will care and the less they will remember anything about Tiger King. Times are different now! We don’t have to care about some weird tiger beef when we can go back to bars and movie theaters. But we’ll see if the series sparks a new interest in Exotic and Baskin’s messy lives.