Casting News - February 16, 2018
CBS All Access' Strange Angel; FOX's Empire; HBO's Big Little Lies; Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet, The Umbrella Academy & Untitled Sabrina Drama; and OWN's Love Is ___.
HBO's BIG LITTLE LIES
- Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern and Zoë Kravitz have officially closed new deals to return to the hit drama for its upcoming second season. They join fellow returning stars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman as well as new addition Meryl Streep.
- Woodley plays Jane Chapman. While processing Perry's (Alexander Skarsgård) sudden death, she is trying to build a new life for herself and her son.
- Dern plays Renata Klein. The epitome of control, she is now faced with new challenges in her marriage.
- Kravitz plays Bonnie Carlson. She struggles with Perry's death and is forced to face demons in her past.
FOX's EMPIRE
- Emmy winner Alfre Woodard has been cast in a recurring role on the drama's fourth season. She has won Emmys for NBC's Hill Street Blues, NBC's L.A. Law, HBO's Miss Evers' Boys and ABC's The Practice. She currently stars in Netflix's Luke Cage.
- She will play Renee, Cookie's (Taraji P. Henson) estranged and extremely formidable mother.
NETFLIX's SANTA CLARITA DIET
- Joel McHale, Maggie Lawson, Gerald McRaney and Zachary Knighton will appear in the comedy's upcoming second season.
- McHale (Community) and Lawson (Psych) will play Chris and Christa, married realtors in Santa Clarita. They are a more successful, more aggressive version of Sheila (Drew Barrymore) and Joel (Timothy Olyphant).
- McRaney (This Is Us) will play Ed Thune, a retired army colonel who Joel finds very intimidating.
- Knighton (Happy Endings) will play Paul, the chill descendent of Serbian ancestors who has been tasked with pursuing the truth of the undead, no matter who or what stands in his way.
CBS ALL ACCESS' STRANGE ANGEL
- Peter Mark Kendall, Michael Gaston, Greg Wise, Rade Šerbedžija, Zack Pearlman and Keye Chan will round out the main cast of the upcoming drama. They join Jack Reynor, Rupert Friend and Bella Heathcote.
- Kendall (The Americans, Chicago Med) will play Richard Onsted, Jack's (Reynor) oldest and best friend. He's a mathematical genius incapable of hiding his opinions, at least when he's around people he deems less intelligent than himself (which is most of the time).
- Gaston (The Man in the High Castle) will play Virgil Byrne, Jack's father-in-law, a domineering, sanctimonious man and a religious zealot.
- Wise (Sense & Sensibility) will play Alfred Miller, the Grand Magus of the Agape Lodge, the occult group that Jack gets pulled into. Attractive and alluring, though a changeling, you never quite know where he stands.
- Šerbedžija (Red Widow) will play Professor Filip Mesulam, Jack's mentor and advisor at Caltech who helps his rocketry project gain greater legitimacy.
- Pearlman (Shameless) will play Samson Hunt, a Caltech student eager to join Jack's rocketeering team. He is a brilliant scientist in the field of fluid dynamics and a strange combination of "good-ole-boy and nerd."
- Chen (Silicon Valley) will play Gui Chiang, a regal and brilliant Caltech student who joins Jack's rocketeering venture. He is from Asian royalty but is often overlooked by his faculty advisors.
NETFLIX's UNTITLED SABRINA DRAMA
- Lucy Davis has joined the cast of the upcoming drama starring Kiernan Shipka. She starred in the original British version of The Office, recurs on FX's Better Things and appears in Wonder Woman.
- She will play Hilda Spellman, one of Sabrina's (Shipka) two witch aunts. More nurturing than Zelda, Hilda's motherly nature and warm sense of humor belie a wicked, ghoulish streak. She is as adept at brewing spite jars against her family's enemies as she is at concocting love potions for the students at Baxter High.
OWN's LOVE IS ___
- Tammy Townsend, Loretta Devine, Tim Reid and Vanessa Bell Calloway have booked recurring roles on the upcoming drama created by Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil.
- Townsend (K.C. Undercover) will play Carol, the fun, sexy and bohemian mother of Nuri (Michele Weaver).
- Devine (The Carmichael Show) will play Betty, the sharp-tongued and insightful mother of Yasir (Will Catlett).
- Reid (Greenleaf) will play Sean, Yasir's lifelong friend as seen in the year 2027.
- Calloway (Shameless) will play Angela, Nuri's lifelong friend and trusted confidante as seen in the year 2027.
NETFLIX's THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY
- Cameron Britton, Colm Feore and Adam Godley are set as series regulars on the upcoming drama based on the graphic novels. Additionally, Ashley Madekwe will appear in a recurring role.
- Britton (Mindhunter) will play Hazel, an infamously ruthless and efficient hitman, currently under contract. His job is to time travel and assassinate targets in different decades. Though a loyal company man who has enjoyed what he does for decades, the job starts to wear on him - which puts him at odds with his equally lethal partner, Cha-Cha (Mary J. Blige).
- Feore (House of Cards) will play Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a world-renowned billionaire industrialist and eccentric inventor. He is also the adoptive father of seven children who were born under mysterious circumstances and have supernatural abilities. He deprived them of any normal childhood, instead relentlessly training and manipulating them into a dysfunctional team of young superheroes.
- Godley (Powers) will play the motion-capture role of Pogo, a genetically engineered, tweed jacket-wearing, talking chimpanzee. He is the trusted, wise aide and companion to Reginald Hargreeves. Much beloved by the adopted children, Pogo tries to carry on his deceased master's legacy by keeping the siblings together.
- Madekwe (Salem) will play Detective Patch, a driven, fast riser within the police department focused on solving a string of crimes in the city. Some might call her arrogant, but she gets the job done, and with charm. She plays by the book, but that doesn't make her soft. She isn't sympathetic to vigilantism - which puts her at odds with a certain sibling of the Umbrella Academy.
