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Melissa McCarthy is returning to TV, signing on to star opposite Nicole Kidman in a Hulu drama.
The Emmy winner and Oscar nominee has joined the streamer’s limited series Nine Perfect Strangers, based on a novel by Liane Moriarty. She also will serve as an executive producer on the project, which is expected to debut in 2021.
The series reunites several members of the creative team behind Big Little Lies: author Moriarty, star and exec producer Kidman, writer and co-showrunner David E. Kelley and exec producer Bruna Papandrea. The project comes from Kidman’s Blossom Films, Papandrea’s Made Up Stories and Endeavor Content.
Nine Perfect Strangers is set at a boutique wellness resort where nine stressed city dwellers go in an attempt to get on a path to a better way of living. The resort is overseen by Masha (Kidman), a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their minds and bodies.
McCarthy will play Francis, one of the nine. The project will be her first series-regular role since CBS’ comedy Mike & Molly ended in 2016. The 2019 Oscar nominee for Can You Ever Forgive Me? recurred on TV Land’s Nobodies (which she also exec produced) and has made several appearances on Saturday Night Live in recent years. McCarthy will also host NBC’s unscripted show Little Big Shots later this year. She is repped by CAA and MGMT Entertainment.
Kelley is writing Nine Perfect Strangers with John Henry Butterworth (Ford v. Ferrari) and Samantha Strauss; Kelley and Butterworth will serve as co-showrunners.
Executive producers for the project are Kidman and her Blossom Films partner Per Saari; Papandrea, Steve Hutensky and Casey Haver for Made Up Stories; and Moriarty, Kelley and Butterworth.
Nine Perfect Strangers is the third collaboration between Kelley, Kidman and Papandrea. The trio are also working on the limited series The Undoing for HBO, where Kidman will star opposite Hugh Grant. The prolific Kelley is also at work on the high-school basketball dramedy Big Shot for Disney+ and adapting Stephen King’s The Institute for Spyglass Media Group.
Deadline first reported McCarthy’s casting.
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