The cast of NBC’s Constantine is coming together quickly, with a female lead and two secondary characters announced Wednesday, joining Matt Ryan, who’s been cast to play the lead.  Lucy Griffiths (True Blood) has been cast as Liv, who can see the supernatural world and teams up with Constantine, according to Deadline.  Harold Perrineau (Lost) will play Manny, an angel who’s assigned to watch over Constantine; and Charles Halford (True Detective) will play Chas, Constantine’s old friend who has possibly supernatural survival skills.

Matt Ryan (Layer Cake) was cast in the title role, according to Deadline.  The pilot will be directed by Neil Marshall (Black Sail, others, see "'Constantine' Pilot Gets Director"), from a script by Daniel Cerone (The Mentalist) and David Goyer (Dark Knight trilogy, Man of Steel).

We are now at less than 60 days since the pilot order in January (see "Pilot Order for 'Constantine'"), and a director and four cast members have been hired, so it certainly appears that this Vertigo comic adaptation is moving quickly to reality.

Meanwhile Steve Bissette, who co-created the character with Alan Moore and John Totleben in Swamp Thing #37, posted a message to DC on his Facebook page, describing the "conundrum" of his situation.  "I have no idea what’s going on from your end,” Bissette wrote.  "...[A]ll I see out here is all everyone else sees out here, and it begs so many obvious questions, which people then ask me, directly, I just thought you should know what a conundrum all this is.  And it gets to be more of a quandary daily now."

His question: "So, in your corporate mind, what should I do?"