Meryl Streep Is Joining the Cast of HBO’s ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2
Meryl Streep is coming for your Emmys. Hollywood’s most beloved actress is officially headed to TV, as HBO’s Big Little Lies pours a little California wine into the Holy Grail of Season 2 castings.
Per HBO’s official announcement, three-time Oscar-winner (and The Post nominee) Streep will take the Season 2 regular role of Mary Louise Wright, mother to Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Alexander Skarsgård’s abusive Perry. The character arrives in Monterey in search of both her grandchildren and answers to her son’s fate. As The Hollywood Reporter also notes, both Streep and Tom Hanks (!!!) were on writer David E. Kelley’s Season 2 wishlist.
Casting of Perry’s mother had been rumored for some time, while more recent rumors suggested Skarsgård himself was likely to return for the second season in some capacity. As-yet-uncast are the parents of Zoe Kravitz’s character, Bonnie. Surprisingly, Big Little Lies won’t be Meryl Streep’s first award-baiting HBO role, as the actress won a 2004 Emmy for her work in Angels in America.
Meanwhile, writer David E. Kelley will return to pen all seven episodes, while Transparent and American Honey director Andrea Arnold will take over for Jean-Marc Vallée. The all-star cast of Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, Laura Dern, Adam Scott and more are expected to return, while the Liane Moriarty-inspired sequel is said to follow the “malignancy of lies, the durability of friendships, the fragility of marriage and, of course, the vicious ferocity of sound parenting. Relationships will fray, loyalties will erode ... the potential for emotional and bodily injury shall loom.”
Production is expected to begin later this year, though a premiere window for Big Little Lies Season 2 is not yet clear.
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