Kathryn Hahn, best known for her scene-stealing turns in comedies like Step Brothers and We’re the Millers, has been cast as the female lead in Showtime’s new half-hour series pilot “Happyish.”
Hahn will play Lee Payne, the wife of Thom (previously-announced Steve Coogan) and mother to their six-year-old son Julius.
Here’s the synopsis: Honest and direct to a considerable fault, Lee believes that people are good and the world can be a better place, which is probably why she is so pissed off: because we aren’t, and it can’t. But she loves Thom, and Thom loves her, even though they both loathe themselves.
“Lee is fierce while funny, defiant while vulnerable; no one can pull that off as deftly, subtly and sincerely as Kathryn Hahn,” said the show’s creator/writer/exec producer Shalom Auslander (“This American Life”). “We’re very lucky to have her. ‘We’ meaning ‘Earth.'”
Hahn originally filmed the role of Lee Payne for the “Happyish” pilot in 2013 opposite the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Emmy-nominee Ken Kwapis (Hes Just Not That Into You, A Walk in the Woods) will executive produce and direct the pilot. Kwapis’ producing partner Alexandra Beattie will co-executive produce, under their In Cahoots banner.
Hahn has a host of projects coming up, including a lead role in M. Night Shyamalan’s low-budget horror tale The Visit, as well as co-starring in the Jack Black vehicle The D-Train and Brad Bird’s blockbuster Tomorrowland opposite George Clooney.
(Photo Credit: Brian To / WENN.com)
