Empire Online reports (via Dark Horizons) that Mark Strong and Svetlana Khodchenkova have joined the cast of Tomas Alfredson's feature film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Strong (Syriana, Body of Lies and Holywood's go-to Brit villain of the moment) will play British agent Jim Prideaux, whose disasterous mission behind the Iron Curtain, Operation Testify, sets the story's events in motion (though not chronologically), and Khodchenkova, a prolific Russian actress and Playboy cover model, will play Irina, the Russian spy Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy) meets in Hong Kong whose information proves equally vital to the plot. As previously reported, Gary Oldman stars as George Smiley, Benedict Cumberbatch plays his Watson, Peter Guillam, and Jared Harris, Colin Firth and Ciaran Hinds round out the cast (to date, anyway) of this John Le Carré adaptation. Ralf Fiennes and David Thewlis were at one point linked with the project, though their names haven't been mentioned officially. Empire also gets reassurance from producer Tim Bevan that this new version of the great spy novel (first filmed for the BBC as a miniseries starring Alec Guinness in 1979) will indeed retain its Cold War period setting. Le Carré himself will be on set as a consultant.
