Amazon’s comedy pilot Good People, from creators Lee Daniels and Whitney Cummings, has signed a second star. Oscar and Emmy nominee Greg Kinnear will join Lisa Kudrow in the show, which revolves around three generations of women working in a college ombudsman’s office. Cummings will also have an onscreen role.
Kinnear will play Dr. Paul Keating, a charming, charismatic philosophy professor at Sacramento University. Described as Indiana Jones meets Joan Didion, he causes problems for ombudsman Lynn Steele (Kudrow) and Hazel Miller (Cummings) because of his unorthodox teaching methods and refusal to acquiesce to “PC” rules.
Per Amazon’s logline, Good People will use its college setting to “navigate the current cultural climate, the concept of feminism across different generations, and the struggle to reconcile socially constructed ideas with current ethical views regarding complex issues such as sex, race, class and gender.”
The project comes from Amazon Studios and Disney’s Fox 21 Television Studios (Empire co-creator Daniels is under an overall deal at sister studio 20th TV). Daniels and Cummings co-wrote the pilot, with Daniels set to direct. The two creators also executive produce, along with Kudrow.
