Mary Steenburgen, whose last series role was on Joan of Arcadia, is headed back to CBS in the comedy pilot Happiness Isn’t Everything.
In other comedy casting news, CBS has also found the two leads for Waiting to Die, NBC has signed Leslie Bibb and John Michael Higgins for its Justin Adler pilot and former Drew Carey Show regular Ryan Stiles has joined Anita Renfroe’s show.
Steenburgen is joining Jason Biggs, Ben Schwartz and Richard Dreyfuss in Happiness, which comes from Arrested Development writers Mitch Hurwitz and Jim Vallely. She’ll be playing Dreyfuss’ husband and the mother of siblings Biggs and Schwartz, according to The Hollywood Reporter, in a comedy about a family that’s a little bit too close.
Steenburgen has also been cast in the movie Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker. Her recent credits include Step Brothers and Four Christmases.
Elsewhere:
– Bibb (Confessions of a Shopaholic, Crossing Jordan) will play the oldest of a group of siblings in the Adler comedy, which is about how the sibs relate to each other and their overbearing mom. Higgins — whose casting in the pilot is formally in second spot to the unlikely-to-return Kath & Kim — will play her husband, a professional polo player.
– Waiting to Die will star Nick Thune (Knocked Up) and T.J. Miller (Carpoolers, Cloverfield) as two guys whose lives look like crap from the outside but who are nonetheless happy.
– Stiles, who has a recurring part on Two and a Half Men, will star opposite comedian Renfroe in a pilot presentation for a family comedy.
Source: Zap2It
