Sara Gilbert Joins Season 3 of Netflix's Atypical After She Announces Departure from The Talk
Sara Gilbert is joining Netflix’s Atypical!
The actress and talk show host will be a recurring character in the third season of the streaming service’s dramedy, PEOPLE can exclusively reveal.
Gilbert, 44, will play professor Judd — a university ethics professor who is generally irritable, strict and chronically underwhelmed, yet capable of compassion — on Atypical‘s third season, which will feature 10 half-hour episodes.
Created, written and executive-produced by Robia Rashid and also executive-produced by Mary Rohlich, Atypical follows Sam (Keir Gilchrist), an 18-year-old on the autism spectrum as he searches for love and independence. In the show’s second season, Sam prepared for life after graduation while Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Doug (Michael Rapaport) faced the aftermath of their marriage crisis and Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine) tried to adjust to her new school.
The casting news comes weeks after Gilbert announced her upcoming departure from The Talk — the CBS daytime talk show that she created and has executive-produced and co-hosted for nine years — to focus on her career as an actress and producer. In addition to her work on The Talk, Gilbert has also been busy as an executive producer and star of The Conners.
“I’m nervous. This is hard to do and something that I have been struggling with for a while and going back and forth. But I’ve decided that it’s time for me to leave the show at the end of the season,” Gilbert said in early April.
“I obviously love it here and like I said, this was extremely difficult. Last season, I did The Conners, as you know, and was also producing, and here, and I loved it and felt totally empowered, but also if I’m being honest about it, I think my life was slightly out of balance and I wasn’t able to spend as much time with my three kids as I’d like, and time for myself,” added Gilbert, who is married to former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry. The two, who wed in March 2014, share son Rhodes Emilio Gilbert Perry, 4. She’s also mother to daughter Sawyer, 11, and son Levi, 14, both from a previous relationship.
“And as I’ve continued on, I’m starting to develop more things to produce and I’m having opportunities to act, and I’m just feeling like I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I was looking at the next six months and just thinking, ‘There’s no time.’ I’ll look at even just small things in my life — my youngest is 4 years old and I still haven’t made his baby book.”
“So just basic life things, but it’s difficult because this is a place that I love and a place where I’m extremely happy. I love the hosts, I love the crew, I love our staff, I am so grateful to the audience for letting me in your homes everyday. It’s been such an honor,” she concluded. “I’m not going anywhere yet, I’ll be here the rest of the season. I will come back as co-host, you’re not going to get rid of me. I’ll be around.”
In 2016, she won a Daytime Emmy when the show was named outstanding entertainment talk show. Her last show on the daytime talk program will be Aug. 2.
