Tony Shalhoub Cast as Republican Senator in CBS' 'BrainDead'
Tony Shalhoub will really need to use his gray matter — even if it’s just as an alien’s breakfast — for his latest role.
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The three-time Emmy winner (Monk, Nurse Jackie) has landed a lead role in BrainDead, CBS’ comic thriller from The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King.
Shalhoub will play Red Wheatus, described by the network as “a hard-drinking, fun-loving Republican senator who has spent decades in Washington making deals, until a radical transformation turns him into a health-conscious extremist who would rather destroy the government than compromise.”
Slated for Summer 2016, BrainDead centers on Laurel (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, A&E’s The Returned), a fresh-faced Capitol Hill staffer who discovers two things at her first job in Washington, D.C.: The government has stopped working, and alien spawn have come to Earth and eaten the brains of a growing number of congressmen and Hill staffers.
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Other cast members include Aaron Tveit (Grease: Live) as Gareth, the Legislative Director to a top Republican senator; Danny Pino (Law & Order: SVU) as Luke, Laurel’s older brother and the Democratic Whip; and Nikki M. James (The Good Wife) as Rochelle, “a medical resident whose father dies as the result of a mysterious infection.”
Does Shalhoub’s casting make you more or less likely to watch BrainDead? Hit the comments with your thoughts!
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