Jason Ralph (Aquarius) and Sosie Bacon (The Closer) have landed the male and female leads in Syfy pilot The Magicians, an adaptation of Lev Grossman’s bestselling fantasy book trilogy. Produced by Universal Cable Prods, The Magicians follows 20-somethings who, while studying magic in New York, discover that the magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real and poses grave danger to humanity. Production got underway this week in New Orleans.

Ralph will play Quentin Coldwater, a brilliant, withdrawn yet strangely compelling young man who has always been a huge fan of a series of books set in the magical land of Fillory. When he’s recruited as a new student at the mysterious Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, he realizes that magic is very real, and that he himself is a potentially gifted practitioner. Ralph, repped by Gersh and Authentic, serves as the co-artistic and producing director of his theater company, Strangemen & Co, and starred in the Off-Broadway run of Peter And The Starcatcher.

Bacon, daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, plays Alice. Born of a magical but neglectful family, Alice is an outcast among her fellow students at Brakebills, but nonetheless emerges as the most brilliant magical practitioner in her class. Bacon, repped by The Kohner Agency, Impression Entertainment and Schreck, Rose, recently wrapped production on the indie The Lost Boy.

Ralph and Bacon join previously cast Stella Maeve, Hale Appleman and Arjun Gupta. Mike Cahill will direct the pilot.