Lucy Liu to Star in ABC Workplace Comedy

Lucy Liu is turning to comedy for her next TV role.

Following years on CBS’ Elementary and a season of the All Access anthology Why Women Kill, the actress has been tapped to topline ABC’s untitled workplace comedy from Friends grad Shana Goldberg-Meehan.

The comedy, formerly known as Bossy and Kids Matter Now, centers on a diva boss who has no patience for working parents who then adopts a baby and has a change of heart and whose mother-of-three assistant becomes an unlikely mentor, upending the office dynamics.

Liu will play Devin, the head of Shelter, a successful modern furniture company who is a force and unfamiliar with failure. But when she adopts a baby, she’s ill-prepared for the task of parenting and feels at a complete loss as to how to be a mom.

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Goldberg-Meehan (Friends, Joey) will pen the script and exec produce the multicamera comedy. Liu also will be credited as a producer on the potential series, with Christine Gernon attached to direct the comedy. The project is a co-production between CBS TV Studios and Disney’s 20th Century Fox TV.

The comedy brings Goldberg-Meehan back to ABC, where she worked on Speechless, which was based on the family of her husband, Scott Silveri. Goldberg-Meehan, daughter of Family Ties creator Gary David Goldberg, was a writer and consulting producer on Speechless through its three-season run.

Liu is fresh off her one-season run on Why Women Kill, the Marc Cherry CBS All Access anthology. Her TV credits include seven seasons on Elementary, Southland, Ally McBeal, Cashmere Mafia and Dirty Sexy Money. On the film side, she starred alongside Glenn Powell and Zoey Deutch in the Netflix breakout Set It Up and counts franchises including Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels and Kung Fu Panda. She’s with ICM Partners, Framework Entertainment and Schreck Rose.

The Goldberg-Meehan comedy is one of only five pilots that ABC plans to shoot in the fall — or when considered safe — after the novel coronavirus pandemic effectively canceled pilot season.