June Diane Raphael will star in, write and exec produce NBC's Mason Twins, playing the immature sister opposite Erinn Hayes.
June Diane Raphael is joining Jane Fonda‘s family.
The NTSF:SD:SVU actress has booked a series regular role on Netflix’s Fonda-Lily Tomlin comedy Grace and Frankie, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The single-camera comedy centers on nemeses Grace (Fonda) and Frankie (Tomlin), whose lives are turned upside down when their husbands announce they are in love with each other and plan to get married. The women, much to their dismay, find that their lives are permanently intertwined and, much to their surprise, find they have each other. It comes as Netflix looks to push further into comedy, as original content vp Cindy Holland noted in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Raphael, who most recently co-wrote and was attached to star in NBC’s comedy pilot Mason Twins, will play Brianna, one of Grace’s and Robert’s (Martin Sheen) two daughters. She rebels against Grace’s emphasis on appearances and decorum, but despite her keen awareness of who she’s not, she struggles to define who she is. Her first steps toward understanding the person she wants to be comes after she replaces Grace as CEO of Grace’s beauty line, where her bullish bluntness (self-described “authenticity”) serves her well.
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Newsroom‘s Sam Waterston will play Sol, Frankie’s husband, who has been keeping a secret from his wife for 20 years. That changes when he announces he’s gay and has been having a secret affair with his law partner, Robert, since 1994. And now that it’s legally an option, they want to get married.
Grace and Frankie is slated for a 2015 debut and is written and created by Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman and Howard J. Morris (TBS’ Sullivan & Son, According to Jim, Home Improvement). Kauffman, Morris, Paula Weinstein, Fonda, Tomlin and Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross are on board to executive produce. Tate Taylor (The Help) also serves as executive producer and will direct the first episode.
Raphael, whose credits include New Girl, Parks and Recreation and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is repped by UTA, Silver Lining and Ziffen Brittenham.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
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