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Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are making room for more hosts in the series, “The Morning Show”(also known as Morning Wars in Australia and Indonesia.) It was announced Tuesday by Variety that Julianna Margulies has joined the cast for the show’s second season. The “ER” actress will play Laura Peterson, an anchor at UBA News. She joins the star-studded returning cast members that include Aniston, Witherspoon, Steve Carrell, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Bel Powley, Karen Puttman, and Desean Terry. It was previously announced that Greta Lee, Ruairi O’Connor, and Hasan Minhaj will also be joining the new season.
The Morning Show is the flagship series of Apple’s streaming service and debuted last year in 2019. The show stars TV anchor Alex Levy, played by Aniston who hosts a popular breakfast news program broadcast from Manhattan on the UBA network. The network has amazing viewership ratings and is perceived to have changed American television. After her on-air partner of 15 years Mitch Kessler, played by Carrell, is fired amidst a sexual misconduct scandal, Levy is determined to keep her title as one the top news anchors. Along the way she sparks a rivalry with Bradley Jackson, played by Witherspoon, who is a haphazard field reporter with a history of acting impulsively. It has since been nominated for multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Awards with Crudup winning the Emmy for best supporting actor in a drama. Aniston also won the SAG Award for best actress in a drama series.
While the show is studded with talented actors, Marguiles is ready to step up to the plate with her impressive accolades. Margulies is one of TV’s most familiar faces for her outstanding work on critically-acclaimed shows. Per Variety, she has been nominated for 10 Emmy Awards throughout her career which started around 1991. She won three for her time on “ER” and “The Good Wife.” She has also been nominated for 12 Golden Globe Awards, winning the award for best actress in a drama series for “The Good Wife.” Per TVline, in 2019, she almost reprised her Good Wife role of Alicia Florrick in Season 3 of the spinoff series “The Good Fight.” However, the deal fell apart. The actress would have appeared in three episodes but Margulies said at the time, “CBS refused to pay my [ask],” and explained that CBS wanted to pay her a guest-star rate vs. her regular fee. “I’m not a guest star; I started the whole thing with The Good Wife. I wanted to be paid my worth and stand up for equal pay. If Jon Hamm came back for a Mad Men spinoff or Kiefer Sutherland wanted to do a 24 spinoff, they would be paid.” Marquiles said.
That same year in 2019 Marguiles starred in the first season of the Nat Geo series “The Hot Zone” as Dr. Nancy Jaax. Most recently, she appeared on the popular Showtime series “Billions” where she played Catherine ‘Cat’ Brant... Her first literary project, “Sunshine Girl,” debuts next year on May 4. The Morning Show Season 2, is currently in production in Los Angeles and is slated to bow in 2021. Margulies posted a photo on set Wednesday morning wearing a leather jacket and a face mask and asked fans to guess where she was. She captioned the pic, “Back at work again! Can you tell what set I’m on?”
Aniston and Witherspoon are executive producers of the series in addition to starring as the leads. The series was developed by Kerry Ehrin, who also serves as showrunner and executive producer. Kristin Hahn executive produces under her and Aniston’s Echo Films banner, while Lauren Neustadter executive produces for her and Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Michael Ellenberg also executive produces via Media Res. Mimi Leder also executive produces and directed multiple episodes. Media Res is the studio on the series.