Steve Zahn has signed on to play one of the two leads in the ABC drama pilot Influence, from Awake creator Kyle Killen and 20th TV, Deadline said.

The project is described as a provocative workplace ensemble centered on the complicated relationship between two brothers — a bipolar genius in human psychology and a slick ex-con — who head a unique agency designed to solve their clients’ problems using the real science of human motivation and manipulation.

Zahn will play the genius brother Clark, an unmedicated bipolar world renowned expert in the fields of human behavior, psychology and motivation. He’s a former professor whose academic career imploded when the university became aware he was having an affair with a 22-year-old undergraduate.

Zahn, repped by WME, Principal Entertainment and J. Franklin Stewart, recently starred in the HBO drama Treme and the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid movie franchise.