Amazon's Them: Covenant; The CW's Katy Keene; Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere; National Geographic's Genius: Aretha; and Netflix's Never Have I Ever.
THE CW's KATY KEENE
- Bernadette Peters has been cast in a recurring role on the upcoming Riverdale spinoff starring Lucy Hale. She has received seven Tony Award nominations - winning in 1986 for Song and Dance and in 1999 for Annie Get Your Gun. She recently starred for four seasons in Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle and has recurred on CBS All Access' The Good Fight.
- She will play Ms. Freesia, Pepper Smith's (Julia Chan) eccentrically elegant surrogate mother and mentor who taught her the art of the con. She is a wealthy Upper East sider who secured her luxurious lifestyle through cunning means and is actively forming Pepper in her fabulous image.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC's GENIUS: ARETHA
- Cynthia Erivo will star as soul singer Aretha Franklin on the upcoming third installment of the anthology series. She won Tony, Grammy and Daytime Emmy Awards for the Broadway musical revival of The Color Purple. She plays Harriet Tubman in the upcoming film Harriet. She also stars opposite Ben Mendelsohn in HBO's upcoming limited series The Outsider.
- The third season explores Franklin's musical genius and incomparable career, as well as the immeasurable impact and lasting influence she has had on music and culture around the world. Grammy Award winner Franklin was a gospel prodigy and outspoken civil rights champion and is widely considered to be the greatest singer of the past 50 years, receiving countless honors throughout her career.
AMAZON's THEM: COVENANT
- Shahadi Wright Joseph, Alison Pill, Ryan Kwanten, Melody Hurd, Javier Botet, Percy Hynes White and Derek Phillips have joined the cast of the upcoming horror anthology starring Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas.
- Joseph (Us, The Lion King) will play Ruby Lee Emory, an intelligent, studious 14-year-old and the apple of her father's (Thomas) eye. She is a starlet in the making.
- Pill (Star Trek: Picard, Devs) will play Betty Wendell, who has a hunger for family, love and a certain station. Her quotidian, suburban life is interrupted by the arrival of the Emory family.
- Kwanten (True Bloods, The Oath) will play George Bell, a Korean War veteran and the neighborhood milkman couched in a Southern California dreamboat.
- Hurd (Fatherhood, Battle at Big Rock) will play Gracie Emory, a strong, willful and fiercely independent 6-year-old firecracker who takes after her mother (Ayorinde).
- No details were immediately released about the role Botel (the It film franchise) will be playing.
- White (The Gifted) will play Davis, a blossoming hep-cat who has been treated as an outside most of his life within his uptight suburban community.
- Phillips (Longmire, Shooter) will play Sergeant Bull Wheatley, the face of East Compton's Police Department.
NETFLIX's NEVER HAVE I EVER
- Richa Shukla will co-star on the upcoming comedy created by Mindy Kaling. She has previously guest starred on FOX's The Mindy Project, TBS' Sullivan & Son, CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles and FOX's 9-1-1.
- She will play Kamala, Devi's (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) cousin from India, who's getting her PhD from Caltech.
HULU's LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE
- Jesse Williams has booked a recurring role on the upcoming limited series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. He currently stars in ABC's Grey's Anatomy, which is currently airing its sixteenth season and has already been renewed for its seventeenth.
- He will play Joe Ryan, a wealthy Wall Streeter who for years has struggled to conceive with his wife, Madeline. They turn to an unlikely source to help start their family.
