Skip to main content

Casting Couch: Pilots to Recast Several Series Regulars

For those of you who are looking forward to this fall's Brothers & Sisters, my advice is: don't get too attached to Jonathan LaPaglia... or Betty Buckley for that matter, as both actors are being recast.

It's a process that happens every year. As networks pick up pilots and make the move from ordering shows to actual production on them, there are bound to be some tweaks, including a few nips and tucks in the casting department. As to the whys, that's anybody's guess. But it's a fact of life in the TV biz that not everyone in the pilot will make it to the series intact.

Today's issue of The Hollywood Reporter details some of these changes, including the recasting the two actors above, who played Kevin Walker and matriarch Iva Walker respectively on ABC's new fall drama Brothers & Sisters (reviewed here).

Additionally, THR is reporting that the role of Kimberly in the ABC drama Traveler will be recast as well. In the pilot, Kimberly was played by Gillian Jacobs. Over on CBS, Kathleen Rose Perkins was removed from the mid-season sitcom Rules of Engagement. And news that FOX drama The Wedding Album was looking for a new lead to replace outgoing star Bruno Campos leaked before the announcement of a series order even came in.

NBC's The Single Table will recast the role of Georgia, one of the five series regulars, to replace outbound Pascale Hutton. Likewise with CW's Girlfriends spinoff The Game, which will recast one of the football player's wives, Kelly Parker. That role had been played by Jennifer Baxter in the pilot. And CBS' comedy The Big Bang Theory, has received an order for a new pilot altogether and is now looking for a replacement for the series' female lead, which had been played by Amanda Walsh.

In other casting news, several returning shows are looking to hire additional actors as well. Law & Order will replace Annie Parisse, who recently left the drama, with another actress to fill the role of the assistant district attorney. Additionally, Close to Home, Old Christine, Ghost Whisperer and Prison Break are all expected to add new characters next season as they return for sophomore seasons. THR reports that the producers of Prison Break are seeking an actor to play a new nemesis for Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), while Ghost Whisperer's producers are looking for an actress to "fill the void left by the departure of Aisha Tyler, whose character died in the season finale."

More interesting, however, is the news that the producers of Lost are looking for two new actresses to join the cast, following the dramatic deaths of series regulars Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby (Cynthia Watros). Interesting... Could these new female characters be members of the mysterious Others? Or fellow survivors of another island stranding? Only time will tell...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj