Jeremy Wheeler is Rabbi Weiss

British character actor Jeremy Wheeler will play Houdini's father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, in HISTORY's Houdini miniseries. The 57-year-old actor was born in Dover. He now lives and works in Budapest, Hungary, where the miniseries shot last year.

Rabbi Weiss has only once before been portrayed in a biopic by Curt Lowens in the 1998 TNT television movie, Houdini. In that film Rabbi Weiss only had one scene (his death). Hopefully Wheeler gets more screen time.

Houdini stars Adrien Brody as Houdini and Kristen Connolly as Bess. The 4-hour miniseries is directed by Uli Edel from a script by Nicholas Meyer. Other cast include Evan Jones as Jim Collins, Eszter Ónodi as Cecilia Weiss, and Tom Benedict Knight as Theo Hardeen.

Houdini will air over the course of two nights on HISTORY in the Fall.