Emmy nominee Kathryn Hahn has just picked up her next big role. The popular actress, who was up for a Best Supporting Actress honor at the Primetime Emmy Awards, will play late comedy icon Joan Rivers in the upcoming limited series The Comeback Girl. In the works at Showtime, the series comes from Warner Bros. Television, Atlas Entertainment, and Berlanti Productions.
This new series is primarily set in during the aftermath of the cancellation of The Late Show, coinciding with her husband Edgar Rosenberg’s death by suicide. The official logline for The Comeback Girl reads: “Trailblazer. Adored. Cruel. Diva. Joan Rivers had a life like no other. At age 54, she was a superstar comedienne…and then it all fell apart. The Comeback Girl is the awe-inspiring untold story of how Joan Rivers persevered through near suicide and professional abyss to rebuild herself and her career to become a global icon.”
Along with starring in the lead role, Kathryn Hahn will also executive produce. Director Greg Berlanti is also exec producing alongside screenwriter Cosmo Carlson (The Showrunner, Valedictorian). The project came to fruition after Carlson wrote The Comeback Girl, as a spec script, which got Atlas Entertainment’s Richard Suckle and Robert Amidon on board. Carlson and Suckle then took the project to Berlanti and Sarah Schechter of Berlanti Productions and they promptly signed on. Suckle and Charles Roven are exec producing for Atlas alongside Schechter and David Madden for Berlanti Productions.
A comedy trailblazer, Joan Rivers made a name for herself in New York’s comedy scene in the 1960s. She started appearing on The Tonight ShowStarring Johnny Carson when fans really took a liking to her, turning Rivers into a regular guest host of the show by the 1980s. In 1986, Rivers jumped ship to launch The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers on Fox to directly compete with Carson. This made her the first woman to host a late-night talk show, and though the show was short-lived, she later hosted the daytime talk show The Joan Rivers Show, managing to win a Daytime Emmy during that time.
Joan Rivers passed away in 2014 shortly after undergoing what was intended to be a minor medical procedure on her throat. At the time, her death left fans and fellow comedy legends in mourning as they said farewell to an icon. A variety of television talk show hosts also paid tribute and credited Rivers for inspiration, including Jimmy Fallon, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, Regis Philbin, Arsenio Hall, Wendy Williams, and Sally Jesse Raphael.
Kathryn Hahn may be best known for playing the villainous Agatha Harkness on the hit Disney+ series WandaVision. The role put her up for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards, and though she didn’t win, many fans declared that Kathryn Hahn was “robbed.” Hahn also picked up a role as part of the ensemble cast of Rian Johnson’s upcoming sequel Knives Out 2, another big part for the beloved actress.
Kevin Feige of Marvel has teased that we will see Agatha back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe soon enough. Until then, fans of Hahn can look forward to seeing her as Joan Rivers in The Comeback Girl. This news comes to us from Variety.